Europe's horse meat scandal underlines the divide between Britain and the mainland

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

While the British and Irish reacted with outrage, continental Europeans like the Germans were noticeably less scandalized. But there is a silver lining; regional beef is booming as consumers turn more to meat products made at home

by NORMAN DUNN

When horse meat was discovered in beef burgers, frozen lasagnas and a variety of other cooked meals in January, major supermarkets in the United Kingdom and Ireland had to clear their shelves of around 10 million burgers over just a couple of days. Unknown to them, the "beef" burgers, most of which had come from two major meat suppliers in Ireland, contained up to 80 per cent horse meat.   

Other countries in Europe have been affected too, but not to the extent of Britain and Ireland, where horse meat is largely taboo. Even the slaughter of old horses often takes place well away from home – in European mainland abattoirs.

That at least some of these exported horses could end up returning as meat never seemed to occur to anyone, outside of the meat trade anyway. During the last months of 2012, most of the horse flesh ending up in British burgers came from a Polish meat packer.

When British farm journalist Joe Watson fired off a question on the horse meat scandal during the "Green Week" international press conference in Berlin, he may have been surprised by the noticeable lack of excitement when he related the drama back home. German Minister of Agriculture Ilse Aigner looked less than interested and passed the question on to Farmers' Union president Joachim Rukwied. He also refused to get excited. "It's certainly not illegal to sell horse meat in burgers," he commented. "Although, of course, the product must be labelled with indications of exactly what kind of meat is present."

Actually, as I write this, there's an argument still going on in the European Union's Brussels headquarters. The point of contention is that no one has found a legal definition of what meat should be in a "burger." Even the term "beef burger" is nothing more than an implication that it's made of cattle meat, argue the experts. So, to many of them, there's nothing actually illegal in making a burger with horse meat.

The British, at any rate, refuse to adopt or accept this continental nonchalance. David Heath, the minister of agriculture in London, immediately set up a charter involving all retailers of burgers, pies and similar meat products. As from late January, meat DNA has to be tested in every batch and full results publicized by the stores and supermarkets concerned. Naturally, there's been a massive fall in burger trading. One Irish processor that minces and packs 3.5 million patties per day actually closed down at the end of January.  

But, quite unlike the salmonella scares with eggs and chicken meat in recent years, overall sales of fresh beef burgers and similar products don't seem to have been affected. In fact, quite the reverse according to a survey of traditional butcher stores carried out in Northern Ireland during the first week of February. There, the traditional family butcher firms claim that their sales have actually increased – by as much as 30 per cent – as the consumer turns away from the frozen or chilled articles in the supermarkets.

Perhaps quite rightly, our daily food supplies and the way in which they are repeatedly manipulated for extra profit by the "black sheep" in the sector always end up on the front pages of the media. What isn't fair is that the only real victims of the resultant scares are primary producers whose farm sales go into immediate meltdown.

But the horse meat burgers scandal is demonstrating an encouraging side-effect, judging by the experience of the local family butchers mentioned above. Regional foods, farmers' production and artisan butcher skills are all being given a boost.

Another interesting point brought out by this drama covers the widely varying attitudes of consumers across Europe when it comes to horse meat. In Belgium, Germany and France there's nothing at all unusual in eating horse. This explains the lack of surprise by panel members at the international press conference mentioned earlier in this article.

You can walk down the main streets in a hundred villages and towns in southwest Germany and you'll come across butcher stores specializing in horse meat and its products – particularly sausages. And turn up at a village fair or farmers' market and you'll see mobile horse meat vendors who travel from site to site selling their wares. One of the most surprising things, to British eyes anyway, is that these trailer stores are always to be found at horse fairs and other equestrian events.

On the European mainland, people seem to love their horses and associated equestrian sports just as much as the British or Irish. But, east of the North Sea they don't turn up their nose at enjoying the byproducts, too – on their dinner plates.

At press time the "horse meat scandal" is still growing throughout Europe. The main culprit for supplying relabelled horse meat as beef seems to be a supplier in the Netherlands, a man already convicted for reselling imported South American horse meat as beef. But an Italian slaughter concern, as well as different Polish and possibly North American sources, have also been identified. Meanwhile, DNA tests are being carried out on an estimated 2,250 different "beef" convenience foods, pies, burgers and goulashes right across Europe in a concerted EU action to try to assess the extent of the adulteration. BF

Norman Dunn writes about European agriculture from Germany.