(Larry Goodman’s ABP purchased meat from Selten foods, sourced by Norwest Foods, set up by Ray McSharry Jnr, who had previously worked for Goodman. The meat came from an abbatoir in the UK, above, owned by the Turner family, of Dundalk cargo handling fame.)

Ten months after the horsemeat scandal came to light, investigative journalist Felicity Lawrence, of The Guardian, reports that details of how horsemeat came into the British and Irish food chain are still being kept from the public.

From her report:

“A Guardian investigation has unpicked one strand of this complex supply chain. Behind beef products sold by famous high-street names we have uncovered a labyrinth of murky meat brokerage that stretches across borders, and takes in drug and horse smuggling, animal welfare abuses, and one of Europe’s richest beef tycoons.

At one point in the chain, there is testimony from migrant workers paid cash in hand to process defrosted meat that was “green” and years old. The Guardian has established that some meat from the plant was sent via a trader to the leading European supplier that manufactured adulterated beefburgers sold in several high street stores.

The Tesco burgers and those at Burger King, Co-op and Aldi that also tested positive for horse DNA were all made by the ABP group in its Silvercrest factory, in the border area of Ireland. ABP – the initials derive from Anglo-Irish Beef Processors – is the leading processor of cattle in Europe.

…Larry Goodman’s ABP has blamed the adulteration in its chain on rogue managers at the Silvercrest site in County Monaghan, who, without the knowledge of head office, were buying in frozen meat for burger-making from traders who were not on the list of suppliers approved by its customers.

…The company told us meat from Selten was sourced for ABP not directly but on occasion by a Cheshire-based trading company called Norwest Foods.

That company was set up by Ray MacSharry Jr, son of the former Irish agriculture minister and European commissioner and, the Guardian has established, a former employee of Goodman. Norwest’s business interests include an abattoir in Spain, an office in Poland and an animal feed business in Ireland.

Last month both companies announced that they had reached a confidential financial settlement, and Norwest apologised for selling horsemeat to ABP Silvercrest unwittingly. ABP refused to answer questions about where the Selten meat had ended up.

So meat from Selten ended up at ABP for making burgers, but what were Selten’s sources? The Guardian has managed to follow a trail from Selten’s Dutch factory back to a key source of its horsemeat in the UK. Selten took deliveries from a Cheshire-based slaughterhouse known as Red Lion. It is owned by the Turner family, who slaughter and cut horsemeat and who own a cargo handling company in Dundalk, Ireland.

 

More here and Video: Food fraud: how beef and horsemeat became mixed is still unclear (Felicity Lawrence, The Guardian)