MEAT SUBSTITUTED IN ONE IN FIVE FOODS SOLD IN THE UK

Several years after the horsemeat scandal hit international headlines, meat substitution continues in the UK a new report has found. A series of tests conducted by the UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) on meat and meat products sold in the UK in 2017 revealed that one in five products contained meat not declared on labels. The FSA ran test on 665 items and found that 145 items were partly or wholly made up of unspecified meat, finding DNA from as many as 4 different animals in the samples tested, with the most commonly mislabelled product being minced meat, followed by sausages and kebabs. The report found that cheaper meats were replaced with more expensive meats, with the most contaminated meat product with other DNA being lamb followed by beef. Although a FSA spokesperson told the BBC that the report was “not representative of the wider food industry,” it has nonetheless raised concerns on the extent of non declared meat substitution in foods sold in the UK.