Could the horse meat scandal happen again?

This year got off to a galloping start for the food industry when it emerged that horse meat was being added to beef burgers and ready meals.

Twitter lit up with horse-burger jokes, and the scandal was described as the biggest food fraud of this century. Almost a year later, seldom a week goes by without a reference to horse meat from a media outlet somewhere in the world.

Earlier this month an interim report on the crisis in the UK called for a dedicated food-crime unit with investigatory powers similar to those of the police, to prevent a similar scandal.

Here in Ireland, despite a lengthy investigation by the Department of Agriculture, which found fault with the actions of several companies, no one has yet been prosecuted.

But can we say that our beef burgers are now free of horse meat?

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland, which uncovered the scandal, says food fraud has been with us for centuries and will always be with us.

Its director of consumer protection, Ray Ellard, says that if criminal elements think they can get away with adulterating beef with cheaper meat, they might try, "but there's a much greater likelihood now that if they did try they'd be found out".

He says food-processing companies and retailers have introduced their own DNA-testing regimes since the scandal, to ensure that what they order is exactly what they get.

Some companies have gone farther than checking for horse. Dr John O'Brien, head of food safety at Nestlé's research centre, recently said the crisis had led Nestlé to test for the presence of meat such as kangaroo and dog. He told the Agricultural Science Association conference that people working in food safety had now become molecular detectives.

“Not only are we concerned with horse; we are also keeping an eye on kangaroo, dogs, goats and a few other species and asking questions.”

Nestlé, the world’s largest food manufacturer, was one of many food companies drawn into the horse-meat scandal when it had to withdraw products in Italy, Spain and France after tests found equine DNA.

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland and its counterparts across Europe are also running their own testing programmes, but they are not publicising what they are testing for, for obvious reasons.

“We have an annual programme of testing for microbiological and chemical risks which takes into account what we consider to be the likely risks, which would include potential fraud,” Ellard says.

In a further move to prevent food fraud, an EU regulation on official controls is being revised. This regulation sets out standards for the work done by agencies such as the Food Safety Authority. All tests are traditionally based on food-safety risks; the updated regulation will require these agencies to also take food fraud into consideration.

Ellard says this will change the way all the food safety agencies in Europe do their work.

“It’s a bit like counterfeit goods. If there are high-value food items that can be easily counterfeited, and where there’s a potential to make a lot of money, then people will try to do that. Food authorities and retailers have to start thinking in the same way about where might there be opportunities for people to substitute foods and make a lot of money.”

The lead author of the UK horse-meat report, Prof Chris Elliot, says he believes the problem of food crime is likely to get worse, as supply chains have become so complex and margins are being squeezed.

His report cites one meat-product supplier who described an unnamed retailer asking him to produce a gourmet burger for a unit price of under 30p a kilo. The supplier said that by using the cheapest beef available from older cows, and factoring in fixed costs, the lowest possible unit price would be 59p.

The report also cites several types of food susceptible to criminal activity, including fish, New Zealand manuka honey, pomegranate juice and Spanish olive oil. The full report will be published next spring.

One thing is certain. We haven’t heard the last of the horse-meat crisis.