Mislabeling leads to uncomfortable revelations in false meat fiasco

Food labels that are found to deliberately deceive customers could result in harsh reprimands for the company in question and irreparable damage to its reputation. In Europe, there have been outbursts this year over the discovery of horse meat in products that claimed to be beef, but new developments have shown some suppliers provided a very high percentage of this animal.

As the Guardian reports, multiple British supermarket chains, including Tesco and Aldi, have discovered horse in their frozen meat section. Arrests are being made with government agencies attempting to minimize the damage while holding the responsible parties accountable.

Aldi in particular was found to be selling frozen pasta products that allegedly contained meat derived entirely from horses, while Tesco has had similar issues with burgers. Both chains seem to share fraudulent suppliers, and as tests throughout the continent show a high presence of this undesired quantity, specific meat workers thought to have been involved are being targeted by authorities.

The UK’s Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Owen Paterson, was quoted in the Guardian communicating the concern over this tainted meat, some of which was said to have originally come from locations like Romania.

“Anyone who has these products in their freezer should return them to retailers as a precaution,” he said.

In these cases, the bad ingredients set off a chain reaction of blame and government action. By making labels that can be verified and don’t require further investigations, those who harvest or produce any kind of consumable item can make their trade more trustworthy.