Horsemeat scandal exposes complex food chain
Feb 13, 2:59 PM (ET)
By JILL LAWLESS and LORI HINNANT
LONDON (AP) - First, there was "pink slime." Then horsemeat. Most recently?
"Desinewed meat."
Recent revelations that such products have reached dinner tables, including
horsemeat falsely labeled as beef in Europe, have cast an unappetizing light
on the global food industry.
Critics say the widening horsemeat scandal in particular is a result of a
food supply chain that has become too complex to be safe. Others say we are
stuck with the system: In today's world, foodstuffs are highly mobile
commodities, while consumers have come to expect - and increasingly need -
plentiful, cheap meat.
Genevieve Cazes-Valette, a French anthropologist who studies food, said that
throughout history, people around the world have had a special and intense
relationship with meat.
"When we fast, we don't give up bread. We give up meat," she said.
A century ago, meat was a dish primarily for special occasions or the rich.
That's still the case in much of the world, but today consumers in wealthy
countries expect meat to be their primary source of protein, and they want
it inexpensive and convenient. They'd also prefer not to think too hard
about where it came from.
"They want cheap and they want good," Cazes-Valette said.
Europe's horsemeat scandal has exposed a food supply chain set up to fulfill
that demand - one in which meat from a Romanian abattoir can end up in
British lasagna by way of companies in Luxembourg and France.
Since horse DNA was found in burgers from an Irish plant last month, the
scandal has snaked its way across the continent, exposing a haphazard system
with seemingly little rhyme or reason.
Horsemeat is not generally considered unsafe to eat, but the scandal has
triggered disgust in places such as Britain where it traditionally is not
eaten and anger over the mislabeling of food products.
Three of the British firms whose products were found to contain horsemeat
say they got the products from a French food processing firm, Comigel.
Comigel instructed Tavola, its subsidiary in Luxembourg, to make the
products. Tavola placed an order for the meat with supplier Spanghero, based
in the south of France, which contacted a Cypriot trader, who subcontracted
a Dutch trader.
The Dutch trader placed an order with abattoirs in Romania, which sent the
meat to Spanghero. The Romanians deny mislabeling horsemeat as beef.
Spanghero sent it on to Comigel's factory in Luxembourg, and it went into
food products sent to stores across Europe.
Apart from the use of horsemeat - whose origins remain disputed - there is
nothing unusual about the process. But the thought of anything making an
unannounced appearance in prepared foods disturbs consumers.
"In France as elsewhere, people have this idea that we don't know quite what
we're eating. We don't know where it comes from. We don't know who has
touched it," Cazes-Valette said.
That unease stems partly from the fact that people in developed countries
have become detached from the origins of the food they eat.
British Conservative lawmaker Mark Spencer argued in the House of Commons
this week that the horsemeat crisis arose partly because "we have lost
context of how valuable food is."
"You could say the same about car tires," he said. "You would never buy
second-hand cheap car tires from someone on the cheap because you would
instantly recognize that your own individual safety is at risk."
It's true that in many Western countries food has rarely been so cheap, and
we have never been so dependent on cheap food.
In Britain, for instance, food once was one of the major household expenses,
but now U.K. households spend less on food than on transport, culture and
recreation, housing or fuel.
According to the Office for National Statistics, British households spent on
average just over 11 percent of their income on food in 2011, much less than
a few decades ago.
But the global economic crisis has hit incomes and, simultaneously, factors
including bad weather, growing demand and speculation have caused prices for
staples such as wheat, corn and soybeans to rise.
In the austerity-hit countries of Europe, people are buying less food, and
seeking cheaper food. So there's a rise in demand for low-cost processed
foods, including cheap burgers, pasta meals and pies.
Supermarkets, under pressure to offer cheap food, demand suppliers provide
products for less. That means bulking out burgers with the cheapest
ingredients possible.
Some in Britain have blamed the horsemeat fraud on an abrupt European ban on
the use of "desinewed meat," the minced flesh that comes from rubbing animal
carcasses that have already been stripped of prime cuts. Desinewed meat
played a major role in British meat products - but since last year's ban,
suppliers have had to find a replacement.
And that, some believe, is where horsemeat came into the picture.
Elizabeth Dowler, professor of food and social policy at the University of
Warwick, said the root of the problem is that food has become a vast
international industry whose main concern is the bottom line.
"Food is treated as a commodity," she said. "It is not seen as something
that contributes to well-being.
"The reality is that the food system is largely in the private sector and it
is about running businesses, very successful businesses that make a lot of
money."
European fears about horsemeat echo those that swept across the United
States last year when the use of a meat product dubbed "pink slime" became
widely known.
Like desinewed meat or horseflesh, it was never alleged that "pink slime"
was unfit for human consumption, but the thought of fatty bits of beef being
treated with a puff of ammonia to kill bacteria was something of a turnoff
for Americans.
The reaction to "pink slime" was drastic.
Fast food companies, including McDonald's, changed their menus. Grocery
stores promised to stop selling it. All but three states opted against
buying meat with the product for school meals. And the meat processors that
churned out the product began closing plants and laying off employees.
Cazes-Valette predicted a similar reaction in Europe.
"People will go back to buying pure beef, that they're going to prepare
themselves," she said. "Maybe they're even going to go back to the butcher,
where they know what's going on."
And, she added, rather than pay more "they're going to eat less."
But Michael Walker, a science and food law consultant to British
food-testing and analysis company LGC, said it will be hard for people to
break their dependence on a complex food supply chain, especially if they
want year-round availability of a wide range of products.
Walker said the horsemeat scandal shows the system of testing and regulation
is fallible, but not fundamentally broken.
He said the science of DNA testing that exposes adulterated meat is robust,
but that regulators, many of whom are facing government budget cuts, needed
to use more "intelligence-led sampling" to catch offenders.
"The ingenuity of fraudsters is almost infinite, but we must do our best to
try and keep up," he said.
---
Hinnant contributed from Paris.
Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni and Dr. Kiiza Besigye Uganda is in anarchy"
Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni na Dk. Kiiza Besigye Uganda ni katika machafuko"
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