Irish horsemeat scandal changed the way Europe looks at food safety

It is exactly ten years ago this week that the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) alerted the world to one of the largest food scandals in recent times after we found horsemeat in beef burgers sold in some Irish supermarkets. When I received the first results of the authenticity survey of beef products on the Irish market that we conducted in late 2012, I initially thought that there was some kind of error in the analytical testing. Extensive retesting, however, in accredited food laboratories both in Ireland and abroad showed that the results were correct. In January 2013 the horsemeat scandal took off at a gallop.

Our findings were a wake-up call for both the food industry and regulatory agencies worldwide. In 2013, the food chain had become increasingly complex, with ingredients sourced far and wide. Industry food traceability systems could have been more robust. Food control agencies were not fully aware of vulnerabilities in the food chain and were not routinely testing for risks of fraud. The common ingredients of food fraud are deliberate misrepresentation, economic advantage and intentional deception.

Over the past decade the horsemeat scandal changed the way we look at food safety in the European Union and perhaps globally. Industry food safety and quality standards were upgraded and now include a requirement for businesses to have food-fraud vulnerability assessment and fraud mitigation plans in place. Supplier approval procedures include risk assessment and traceability audits. Routine surveillance involving authenticity testing is now the norm in most large food companies. Major retailers, cruelly exposed during the horsemeat scandal, now conduct unannounced audits of suppliers to ensure that the food they purchase is authentic and labelled correctly.

[ Food fraud in 2013: Bogus beef. Fake fish. Dodgy vodka. ]

On the back of the horsemeat scandal there was a major overhaul of European Union food regulations and information management systems. National food control agencies are now required to implement risk-based food inspection programmes to identify fraudulent or deceptive practices in the food chain. The official food control regulations were revised to include penalties that are proportionate to the scale of the fraudulent practices. EU systems for co-ordinating communication and sharing of information and intelligence, which were absent in 2013, are now in place. The EU Agri-Food Fraud Network, set up in 2013, links the European Commission (EC) with national liaison bodies designated by member states, and includes Switzerland, Norway and Iceland. It also links with the European Anti-Fraud Office (Olaf) and the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol), who have joined forces to combat food fraud and protect consumer interests. The EC established the Joint Research Centre as a knowledge centre for food fraud and quality with a remit to provide up-to-date scientific knowledge on food fraud, co-ordinate market surveillance activities and operate early warning and information systems for food fraud.

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Achieving and maintaining the standards of food safety and authenticity that consumers deserve requires constant vigilance, an ability to anticipate problems and a multi-country and multi-agency determination

The long arm of the law finally caught up with the people responsible for fraudulently adding horsemeat to beef products. Custodial sentences were handed down to senior staff in the implicated food companies across Europe. In 2015, a Dutch trader was sentenced to 2½ years. In 2017, two UK food producers received 3½ and 4½-year jail sentences and in 2019, a former director of a French meat processor was sentenced to six months in jail for their part in the horsemeat scandal.

No food company in Ireland was intentionally adding horsemeat to products. Some companies were, however, purchasing cheap processing beef without certification or authenticity testing. One of the major lessons from the horsemeat scandal is that if it sounds too good to be true, then it usually is.

[ A decade on: How the horsemeat scandal changed the way the world thinks of food safety ]

Is a scandal on the scale of the EU-wide horsemeat crisis likely to occur again? There will always be criminals around who, given the chance to make easy money, will avail of such opportunities. In December 2022, an investigation by Europol and the Spanish authorities into a criminal network involving the illegal sale of horsemeat in Spain, Belgium, Germany and Italy resulted in the arrest of 41 individuals. While the scale of this illegal activity was small in comparison to 2013, there is no room for complacency. What this incident shows is that the regulatory safeguards introduced across Europe on the back of the horsemeat scandal are working. Achieving and maintaining the standards of food safety and authenticity that consumers deserve requires constant vigilance, an ability to anticipate problems and a multi-country and multi-agency determination to combat crime.

Alan Reilly is former Chief Executive of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland and Adjunct Professor at the Institute for Food and Health, University College Dublin.