The SuperValu supermarket group is the first company in the Republic to adopt a test developed by an Irish research company to guarantee that beef going on sale is BSE-free.
The Enfer Scientific test has been validated by the Department of Agriculture, which itself is trying to guarantee the safety of Irish beef by introducing a national quality assurance scheme.
From yesterday, all beef going into all 168 SuperValu supermarkets will have been tested and cleared by Enfer Scientific. An Irish-owned group, SuperValu has annual beef sales totalling £25 million and is spending £800,000 this year in guaranteeing that its beef is BSE-free. The cost will not be passed on to customers, but will be borne by the company and its beef suppliers, according to the marketing director of SuperValu, Ms Anne Dunphy.
She added: "We are very proud to be the first supermarket group in the world to introduce the Enfer BSE test. The introduction of the test will provide an extra level of assurance for the consumer, on top of rigorous controls already applied by the Department."
Enfer Scientific uses a rapid post-mortem testing system to detect prion proteins in the central nervous tissue where BSE occurs. The test has obvious potential in EU beef markets, particularly in Britain.
Samples are taken from animals at the abattoir stage and BSE-free status is established by the time a carcass or quantity of meat arrives at the retail outlet.
Supervalu and some other Irish supermarket companies already have their own BSE tracing mechanisms in place, independent of the Department of Agriculture's plans to introduce a quality assurance scheme.
Enfer Scientific's technical director, Mr Michael O'Connor, said that BSE, despite its low incidence in Ireland, had cast a shadow over the beef sector. He maintained that the company's test would complement a traceability system and "provide the scientific evidence that beef is safe".
BSE has been found only in the brains and spinal cords of cattle, so the Enfer Scientific test is on central nervous tissue. However, the test could easily be adapted to lymphatic tissue, should that prove necessary, according to Mr O'Connor.
