Northamptonshire County Council has removed beef products from the menu of 17 schools in its district after traces of horsemeat had been identified in several tests.
Although the tests were not on a sample of beef supplied to Northamptonshire, as a precautionary measure the council has removed all beef products from the menu of those schools. The council has also removed beef products from its staff canteens which use the same supplier.
"Our supplier advised us on Friday afternoon that traces of horsemeat had been detected in one of 10 beef mince samples tested nationally" said Councillor Andrew Grant, cabinet member for children, learning and skills.
"We understand these tests relate to a later supply of beef mince following an earlier written assurance by our supplier that all beef products had been fully tested and were cleared.
"As a precaution, we have removed beef products from the menus of these 17 schools.
"We will keep the situation under review and provide further advice during the week. Until further notice we are instructing Nourish catering staff in those schools and in our staff canteens not to serve beef products."
Beef including beef mince in the remaining 199 primary schools using the Nourish service has been confirmed as clear from any contamination of horsemeat through full authenticity checks.
The council oversees the production of 14,000 school meals each day in primary and secondary schools through our Nourish catering service and supplies approximately 65 per cent of the county’s schools with school meals.
The Food Standards Agency's UK-wide beef product survey has revealed seven samples containing horse DNA and a further three may contain traces of pig.
One product tested to date contains levels of pig DNA above 1%. The results show that 212 of the 224 samples taken in phase one are negative for both horse and pig DNA at or above the 1% threshold.
Local authorities are investigating each case where a product is suspected of containing horse or pig and have taken steps to ensure that the product is withdrawn from sale pending confirmation of the test results.
The sampling survey was designed to be geographically representative of beef products on sale across the UK. It is separate from the industry test results that have been supplied to the FSA by the food industry and announced by the Agency in three waves over recent weeks.
Phase one of the study involved testing mainly burgers, but also beef sausages, meatballs and minced beef. Samples of both frozen and chilled products were taken for testing, with a focus on lower priced value or economy ranges of both brands and own-label.
Phase two was added to the survey in order to ensure a wider range of processed beef products were tested. It included ready meals (frozen, chilled and tinned), of which 140 samples were taken.
