LONDON/PARIS – Nestle SA, the world’s largest food company, is withdrawing some beef ravioli and beef tortellini products and suspended deliveries after food tested positive for horse DNA.
Nestle is removing the chilled pasta foods in Italy and Spain immediately and replacing them with 100 percent beef products, the Vevey, Switzerland-based company said in a statement Monday. Nestle has for now also stopped all deliveries of products with beef from H.J. Schypke, a subcontractor of Nestle supplier JBS Toledo NV.
“The levels found are above the 1 percent threshold the U.K.’s Food Safety Agency uses to indicate likely adulteration or gross negligence,” the statement said. “There is no food safety issue, but the mislabeling of products means they fail to meet the very high standards consumers expect from us.”
Nestle is the latest food company in Europe to be engulfed by the horse-meat scandal that started in Ireland in mid-January. Retailers across the region have withdrawn products such as frozen beef burgers, lasagna and meatballs from the shelves and the European Union has ordered immediate testing across the bloc for equine DNA in beef products and the veterinary drug phenylbutazone in horse meat.
Nestle said it has also withdrawn a frozen lasagna produced in France for the catering industry.
The scandal also spread on Monday to Finland, where two ready-made meals sold at German discount chain Lidl — canned beef goulash and tortellini Bolognese — were found to contain horse meat.
Lidl said it was also pulling the products from its shops in Sweden.
In France, meanwhile, the firm that sparked the Europewide food scandal by allegedly passing off 750 tons of horse meat as beef was allowed Monday to resume production of minced meat, sausages and ready-to-eat meals.
But Spanghero, whose horse meat found its way into 4.5 million “beef” products sold across Europe, will no longer be allowed to stock frozen meat, Agriculture Minister Stephane Le Foll said.
Upholding that ban means it cannot act as middleman between slaughterhouses and food-processing companies, the situation that allegedly allowed it to change labels on horse meat and sell it as beef.
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