January 25, 2013

Burger King halts buying Silvercrest products

Burger King will replace all Silvercrest products in the UK and Ireland with products from another approved Burger King supplier, a move that may mean some Burger King products are temporarily unavailable in those markets.

The Irish Agriculture Department last week said it found horse DNA in more laboratory tests on burger samples taken from product manufactured at the Silvercrest Foods plant in Ireland, prompting the company to temporarily halt production.

"While this is not a food safety issue according to findings from the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, upon learning of these allegations, we immediately launched an independent investigation that is currently on-going," the Burger King statement explained.

Siverscrest is part of the ABP Food Group. In the group's website, it states that it has "never knowingly bought, handled or supplied equine meat products and we acknowledge the understandable concern created as a result of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland's DNA frozen beef burger test results."

While extensive and thorough safety checks are conducted on all meat products, the industry does not routinely DNA test meat products for species. The group states that, "As a result of this incident we are implementing a new testing regime for meat products which will include DNA analysis."