May Contain Traces Of Horse (And Pig)

Fair play to the Irish. The UK state supports a vast array of bodies and busybodies designed to monitor and nag about food standards, inspectors for this and that. Someone doing farmhouse teas on weekends will have the kitchens checked ("a dog ? In a kitchen ? Quite impossible.") - yet when it comes to the mass sale of food, only the Irish apparently run a few checks to see if the label accurately describes the contents.

And if I read the story aright, only ONE out of 27 burgers tested contained neither horse nor pig, but beef only. Step forward good old M&S.

Marks & Spencer 'Simply M&S beefburgers' were the only brand found by the FSAI to contain neither pork nor horse and were 100 per cent beef.

Now it's pretty obvious that the supermarkets selling these products should be prosecuted under the Trades Descriptions Act, if nothing else. I can't really think that a small corner shop has much option but to believe the supplier. Not so for the big beasts. They spend enough time beating people down on price, but don't seem to worry about quality.

And prosecutions should then move up the chain.

An investigation into the production of beef burgers containing horse meat is focusing on imported ingredients, Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney said last night.

Those naughty foreigners, eh ?


Hang on ... what's this at Lingfield this afternoon ?

14:05 7 Run		Blue Square Bet Maiden Fillies' Stakes Class 5, £4000.00 added, 3yo plus, £2727.00 penalty				1m
	Form	Horse	Trainer	Age	Wgt	Jockey
1(4)	90	Elusive	Miss A Stokell	7	9 13	Ann Stokell (5)
2(1)		Lily Edge	J J Bridger	4	9 13	K T O'Neill
3(5)	33-2	Lady Lunchalot (USA)	J S Moore	3	8 7	L Morris
4(3)	8-	Maxi Dress (IRE)	J H M Gosden	3	8 7	R Havlin
5(7)	4-	Mistral Wind (IRE)	E A L Dunlop	3	8 7	C Catlin
6(2)	03-	Star Sequence	H Palmer	3	8 7	Martin Dwyer
7(6)	5-	Tesco Value Burger (IRE)	R Broadbent	3	8 7	Philip Clarke