IKEA finds no horsemeat in products

STOCKHOLM: The producer of Swedish furniture giant IKEA’s trademark meatballs said yesterday it had found no horsemeat in the product in which Czech authorities claim to have discovered traces of equine DNA.
“Out of 320 tests performed in the last three weeks, none contain horsemeat,” said the chief executive of Dafgaard, Ulf Dafgaard.
In addition to testing the ingredients used, the contents of products that were ready to be sold had been analyzed by the company and by an external laboratory, he added.
“We continue to perform further tests,” Dafgaard said in a statement.
Dafgaard said it had unsuccessfully tried to contact the Czech lab that found the horsemeat in IKEA’s meatballs to obtain more information about the amount involved.
The Czech veterinary watchdog, the State Veterinary Administration (SVA), said on Monday it had found horsemeat in meatballs supplied to IKEA and in burgers made in Poland that were imported by Denmark-based food chain Nowaco.
One-kg bags of frozen meatballs had been pulled from the shelves in 24 countries, IKEA said yesterday.
The countries were Poland, Austria, Hungary, the Dominican Republic, Britain, Portugal, Finland, Germany, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Thailand, Spain, Bulgaria, Greece, Hong Kong, France, Cyprus and Ireland.
IKEA is the latest group to become caught up in a Europe-wide scandal over the presence of horsemeat in ready-made dishes that erupted in January when horse DNA was detected in beef burgers in Britain and Ireland.