The Grocer – 13 January 2018

food safety

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lasagnes produced by French supplier Comigel con-
tained up to 100% horse. Then a third stream was
uncovered, as ramped up investigations by FSA offic-
ers saw slaughterhouses raided in West Yorkshire, and
arrests made near Aberystwyth.
Amid the furore, MPs demanded quicker test results,
specialist investigators and greater clarity from author-
ities, while a defensive FSA faced down critics and the
embarrassment of failing to pick up on the fraud itself.
Watching all this unfold on BBC News from his home
in Belfast, Professor Chris Elliott was in no doubt the
discovery was set to “open a can of worms” for the food
and drink industry across the UK.
Having spent years looking at contaminated food
supply systems for Queen’s University, Elliott quickly
found himself called upon by TV stations and newspa-
pers for his take on the unfolding scandal.
It was an “unnerving” experience, he recalls. “I’ve
always tried to give a measured response, I’m not sen-
sationalist, but there were questions asked where I was
thinking ‘if you give an inappropriate answer here you
could cause a lot of reputational damage to a business
or they’ll end up suing you, Elliott’. That was always
in the back of my mind.
“What was really very unusual in this was that
nobody was quite sure in government who should lead
on it. It was a hand grenade being passed around differ-
ent government departments and nobody particularly
wanted to take responsibility.”
The FSA had been caught on the back foot. Its vari-
ous duties and remits had been disassembled and del-
egated over a number of years, some to Defra, others to
the Department of Health. “It was a good illustration of
how fragmented food had become in the UK.”
But finally environment minister Owen Paterson
stepped forward to take the lead. The MP for North
Shropshire had been “stomping round the world”
singing the praises of British food and drink since his
appointment to the role in September 2012. When the
story broke, he had just returned from a Shanghai food
festival, where “we had to sell the UK as the world’s
most advanced, technically correct and safe food”.
Paterson called an emergency summit with indus-
try leaders and the FSA on the second Saturday of
February, before flying to Brussels the following week
to discuss the erupting scandal with his European
Union counters.

Horsegate represented “a real threat to the British

food industry” he says. “Although this plant was in

Ireland we were inevitably going to get swept up in

the potential backlash. We took it with the utmost seri-

ousness. It’s not just a financial fraud, it’s potentially a

health fraud on the public.

As well as calling for “a properly manned and

financed food intelligence unit looking at food fraud

so you had real experts”, Paterson and Defra “imposed

a pretty rigorous programme of testing, probably the

most rigorous of all EU member states”.

As a result, by the end of February FSA tests had

uncovered 18 adulterated products across 15 companies

spanning UK supermarkets, foodservice and whole-

sale. But the most thorough testing came from the

retailers themselves, with 5,000+ products checked in

a matter of weeks – a huge undertaking.

‘Retailers wanted to do it’

“I was amazed how quickly we did it,” says Andrew

Opie, food director at the BRC, who worked with retail-

ers to coordinate and collate those results. “Retailers

wanted to do it. It was their product on the shelves. But

the resource to do that was substantial. Testing budg-

ets for a year were expended in a matter of weeks. Labs

were used outside the UK extensively.”

It was worth it, though. The first round of results pub-

lished on 15 February revealed only 0.5% of more than

1,000 products were adulterated. Second and third

rounds, taking in 95% of all relevant products, showed

only a “handful”.

“Those figures were really anticipated by the media,”

remembers Opie. “It was the first comprehensive

approach, and when they were published they real-

ised it was a very small proportion. At that point media

interest dropped off markedly.”

It wasn’t the end of the revelations by any stretch.

Only the following month a third wave of tests by the

FSA uncovered contaminated bolognese and corned

beef in Asda, but the lurid headlines began to subside.

Industry and officials could take a breath. And by April

the dust had sufficiently settled for the City of London

police to begin criminal investigations.

Within months, Operation Boldo, led from August by

Detective Constable Stephen Briars, had begun joining

the dots of how horse ended up in products in the UK,

bringing in Andronicos Sideras, the boss of Tottenham

“It was a hand

grenade being

passed around

different

government

departments

and nobody

wanted to take

responsibility”

and assurance of food supply

networks in the UK to understand

how Horsegate had happened in

the first place.

July 2013

Andronicos Sideras, the boss of

Dinos & Sons, is arrested after his

fingerprints were found on suspect

labels attached to a shipment of

what investigators found to be a

mix of about 30% horsemeat and

70% beef in Northern Ireland.

April 2014

Prosecutors in France file

fraud charges against Dutch

businessman Jan Fasen amid

claims that his company Draap

Trading supplied the adulterated

beef that ended up in Findus

lasagnes.

September 2014

Elliott publishes his final report.

His findings are labelled ‘explosive’

and highlight that the drive to cut

accounting for 65% of all

products within the scope of the

investigation, only five of them had

failed.

April 2013

The police investigation into

the sale of contaminated meat –

Operation Boldo – begins.

June 2013

Professor Chris Elliott agrees to

conduct a review into the integrity