Following the company’s subsidiary, Silvercrest, being named as the source of burgers contaminated with horse meat, ABP Food Group has announced that itwill introduce a new testing regime, including DNA testing, for all meat products.
In a statement on the company’s web site, ABP said that it takes this matter extremely seriously and apologises for the understandable concern this issue has caused.
ABP Food Group companies have, said the statement, never knowingly bought, handled or supplied equine meat products and it acknowledged the understandable concern created as a result of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland’s DNA frozen beef burger test results.
This issue only affects frozen beef burgers supplied by Silvercrest Foods and Dalepak Hambleton, said the company, and while there is no food safety issue, a full withdrawal was implemented.
ABP said that it was shocked by the result of these tests, and was currently at a loss to explain why one test showed 29% equine DNA.
Tesco – the highest profile of the companies affected – had announced that it would no longer source from Silvercrest Foods but would continue sourcing fresh beef from other ABP companies.
“We have learnt important lessons from this incident and we are determined to ensure that this never happens again,” said Paul Finnerty, ABP Food Group CEO. “We have already implemented total management change at the Silvercrest facility – which remains closed. We also have effected a Group Re-organisation to better manage our Convenience foods business.
We have put in place new procedures to audit all our third party suppliers. We have also established comprehensive DNA testing procedures – we will become an industry leader in this area. We are proud of our excellent reputation for quality and service throughout Europe and are determined not to allow the Silvercrest incident overshadow what is a great business.”
