December 20, 2007

Ireland investigates meat mislabels

The Irish Farming Association (IFA) through its National Sheep Committee Chairman Henry Burns has called on the Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan this week to launch a full probe on meat mislabelling in some Eurospar supermarket outlets, including lamb stamped New Zealand and re-labelled as Irish.

Burns said IFA members in Kilkenny have discovered frozen legs of lamb from New Zealand were stamps relabelled as "Irish lamb" in Eurospar outlets which is "totally contradictory and highly misleading".

He urged Minister Coughlan to immediately address this matter as "it is totally unacceptable to both producers and consumers that re-labelling of this type would be tolerated".

IFA members in Co. Laois have also found a similar series of mislabelling in the Eurospar store in Portlaoise where Irish lamb was being sold in shelf-ready packs marked "Irish chicken" and without the official EU oval health mark, according to Burns. In addition, beef was being sold in packs marked as "Irish chicken", pork was being sold in packs marked "Irish lamb" and chicken was being sold in packs marked "Irish lamb".

Burns said it is appalling that IFA has discovered two clear cases of mislabelling in Eurospar stores at the same time and the Irish agriculture ministry should do something about it.