“There was nobody in Ireland deliberately adding horsemeat to beef”

Tuesday and all is calm in Professor Alan Reilly’s office at the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI). It is quite a contrast to the same day 12 months previously when national and international media descended on the organisation – just as Professor Reilly was briefing food companies and retailers on the bombshell he was about to drop on their industry.

And what a bombshell it proved to be. A Tesco burger produced at Larry Goodman’s Silvercrest Foods in Co Monaghan contained 29% horsemeat.

Twenty two of 26 beef products tested had traces of pork. The story twisted and turned for weeks, placing Ireland’s food industry in the global spotlight for the wrong reasons.

Looking back now, Ireland’s food industry has emerged far better than anyone could have hoped for in the eye of the storm. In fact, despite the rumour, inference and innuendo at the time, Alan Reilly confirmed that the factual position is that “there was nobody in Ireland deliberately adding horsemeat to beef – that is why we are not prosecuting. We cannot prosecute without an offence”. He added: “The investigation is closed – it has been a hell of a learning experience.”

At the height of the crisis, Reilly faced severe criticism in private and in public, including numerous threats of legal action. The validity of the testing methodology was queried, which particularly annoyed the scientist.

Two large food safety issues – pork dioxin in 2008 and horsemeat in 2013 – have taught him one lesson: food regulation is not for the faint-hearted.

It subsequently emerged that the FSAI had actually uncovered a pan-European fraud of massive scale. When the EU agreed to test processed beef products across Europe, it emerged that 4.66% contained equine material above the threshold of 1%.

One angle of the crisis that Professor Reilly was unprepared for was the reaction of his counterparts in Britain. “Other food control agencies were congratulating Ireland for identifying the problem, but the UK regulators – who were getting fierce criticism from their media and political system – lashed out at Ireland.”

In April, Professor Reilly had what he now describes as the “bizarre experience” of an appearance before the environment, food and rural affairs committee in the UK parliament. “I was surprised at the line of questioning; it was aggressive,” he said this week.

Much of the questioning centred on whether it was “the luck of the Irish” or whether the FSAI was acting on a tip-off – something Reilly has repeatedly denied. “Sometimes we do get tip-offs, but in this case we didn’t,” he said.

The inference from much of the commentary was that Ireland was hiding something or perhaps “wearing the green jersey” and protecting the Irish industry.

Lessons learned

So, has the Irish industry learned from the crisis?

“The key thing for the industry is that practices have changed in meat trading – the role of the trader and broker has disappeared,” Reilly said. “You no longer buy a block of meat on trust.”

Authenticity testing is now a must, he said. “It has changed the nature of how they do business.

“The industry has driven that themselves rather than us, which is a positive.

“Nobody wants to be left holding the parcel when the music stops – a lot were left holding the parcel last year.”

One of the most striking issues to emerge from the crisis was that the EU had no formal system for tackling food fraud. Ireland notified the EU Commission when the problem emerged, but when it was clear that there was no food safety issue, the EU was not interested.

Proposals for a proper system to tackle food fraud are currently working through the European Parliament.

Another question that Professor Reilly raises is the value of private sector quality systems used by retailers and food companies to audit their suppliers, such as the British Retail Consortium (BRC). “None of those private sector standards were sufficiently robust to identify this problem, which was ongoing for a number of years.

“What the industry should have learned – but we have not seen the evidence of it yet –is that we need to get into emerging risk analysis, which involves scanning the horizon for potential problems.” He said that this could be done collaboratively between the public and private sector. “With constant pressure to drive prices down, new and emerging raw material sources are being used. Robust supplier control is a must.”

Irish farmers and the Irish food industry will hope the scanning can identify these threats on the horizon, rather than going through another crisis like horsemeat.

Newry sample contained Irish horsemeat and Polish microchip

At the height of the horsemeat scandal, a consignment of beef trimmings imported by meat trader Martin McAdam was seized at Freeza Meats in Newry and found to contain horsemeat. McAdam was subsequently exonerated for any deliberate importation of horsemeat.

The consignment was found to contain horsemeat of both Polish and Irish origin – including an actual microchip from a Polish horse. The consignment never actually entered the Republic of Ireland and it remains to be explained where the horse meat was actually added.

Quotable quotes

“It was the food scare that had everything - it even had religion.”

“Ireland has invested heavily in monitoring and food surveillance systems – it is paying dividends.”

“The consumer can be assured – there is a robust system underpinning Irish food production.”

KEY LESSONS

Lessons learned from horsemeat scandal – and the action required (EU Commission)

1. Food fraud – strengthen the networking between member states’ food control agencies to fight food fraud using EUROPOL where appropriate.

2. Monitoring programme – need to introduce a monitoring programme for the authentic of animal species in processed meat products.

3. Horse identification – need to strengthen official controls and the identification of horses entering the food chain and establish a central EU-wide database for horses

4. Official food controls – need to strengthen regulations and penalties for deliberate food fraud for economic gain.

5. Food labelling – introduce country of origin labelling (COOL) for raw meat (sheep, goat, pig , poultry and horse) and to review the need to extend COOL to meat used in processed foods.

Horsemeat saga one year on - read more here

Have lessons been learned from the horse meat crisis? - Patrick Wall discusses