Is Horsemeat In Beef A Prime Example Of A Problem We Need The Eu To Fix?

[jake-the-peg]

We keep hearing people say they bought the "beef" in good faith.

- Frankly that just isn't good enough, Do we not need a Europe wide system of food (or at lleast meet) quality enforcement and certification?

Pulling down the blinds and banning imports might help ( until we have the next UK foot and mouth outbreak or whatever ) but it's not a long term solution and it would put up the price of food even higher.

Shouldn't we be kicking our MEPs and not our MPs to fix this one?

[LazyGun]

We definitely need a much better regulatory system to assure provenance of food sources and reduce the opportunity to adulterate for profit.

Light touch regulation - letting the industry police itself - has failed time and time again.

And given the global reach of our food chains, to me it seems obvious that setting regulatory frameworks and protection of consumers is at least one example of where a standardised EU wide approach is more effective, more efficient, and less costly overall.

[wolf63]

Maybe this was the EU's solution to Mad Cow disease?

[bazwillrun]

thats the last thing we need, but the eussr would love it ,something else to harmonise and takeover.

We need to be in control of what comes into our country not the eussr.
The bigger the market and the further its spread the harder it is to control, we need control at our borders and ports etc the foodstuffs that are coming in.

The very last thing we should be doing is trust some faceless bureaucratic self serving agency to check the quality of foodstuffs.

[brionon]

No -we just need Europe to blame. For everything !!

[pdq1]

Maybe its time we brought in a tagging system for horses. They do it with cattle,etc so that the animals traceability can be easily followed to prevent disease. It needs to be EU led though!

http://animalhealth.defra.gov.uk/keeping-animals/registering/cattle.html

[emmie]

If the problem had originated from the UK< our beef, pork, chicken, being contaminated, or passed off as something else, exported to France say, then the world and his wife would come crashing down, they would ban all of our products. Time we did the same, if it puts the price of meat up well so be it. Better that we have a better control of the products we are importing and buying, than have this endless chain of suppliers selling us cheap substitutes, it's fraud in every sense of the word.

[youngmafbog]

Err, Europe is to blame, at least on this one.

It is a nice thought to 'buy British' and I always try to. But being realistic we need to buy foodstuffs from Europe regardless of whether we are 'in europe' so yes Europe needs to get its act together to ensure the chain can be easily followed.

The problem with Europe is that they will bring in a huge number of Dict acts that we in the UK will follow to the letter and everyone else (especially the French) will ignore.

[Old_Geezer]

Europe wide would be nice. World wide nicer. But it is the sort of thing a nation should be able to put in the necessary testing for themselves.

Heard a chap on morning TV claiming the testing was fine and we need not worry, but it seemed to me obvious he is talking about testing ongoing after the horse has bolted and the stable door needed shutting. Where was this wonderful testing we can all trust prior to the scandal ?

[emmie]

no one can guarantee labels on goods are correct. It might say British Pork, but comes from outside Britain, but shipped back and packaged here. I found the same idiocy when looking at some clothes in M&S, the labels are displayed as British made, but look closer, in fact very close because the cloth may come from Britain but the items are made in China.

[emmie]

because obviously it cheaper, but this is lying to the consumer. You need the skills of Sherlock Holmes to keep up with it all

[jake-the-peg]

Who said provenance in that thread?

Just the word I was looking for - Testing isn't enough - we can't test everything.

'We bought it from a middleman' just isn't good enough.

This time it was (Romanian ?) butchers but in 1981 it was Olive oil in Spain and 600 people died!

Something needs to fundamentally change and new 27 sets of rules won't hack it for consumers or producers.

[emmie]

meanwhile what do we eat?

[ludwig]

Apparently the reason these horse meat lasagnes went undetected for so long was because they used mask-a-pony cheese in them.

[pdq1]

The problem could be closer to home. They have found horse meat in meat producers in Britain. They are now looking into it.

[pdq1]

here is the latest:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21434077

[emmie]

this is awful when you think about it, they are playing with people's lives, not just a case of misleading the public but you just don't know what additives are in the meat sources.

[weecalf]

A problem arises that if this is traced and the buyers fined then it put on the price of items .No only have we eaten the wrong stuff but we paid the wrong price .So if it sorted watch the meat prices soar .