One More Thing: Horse scandal rumbles on

The horsemeat scandal was back in the news this week, with the Guardian newspaper running a full-page piece on its effort to explain how Tesco, Burger King and others ended up selling "beef burgers" that included, as Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney so tastefully put it, equine DNA.

An obvious point that can be made is that the supply chains for such products were so complex that no one near the end of the process was in a position to give much by way of guarantee as to who had in truth supplied the beef burgers that were being packaged for human consumption.

The Guardian piece painted a picture whereby undocumented horses might have been leaving Ireland for English abbatoirs before being sent on to Dutch meat- processors which supplied meat to Irish burger makers.

Freeza Meats Ltd, a meat trader based in Newry controlled by the Mackle family, was one of those that featured earlier this year when the horsemeat scandal first broke.

Readers may remember that a block of frozen meat on its premises labelled beef was found upon insp- ection to contain 80 per cent horse.

The firm said it was storing the meat as a favour for McAdam Foods, of Newbliss, Co Monaghan, a claim that was not disputed, and that it had no idea there was anything awry.

Freeza has just lodged abbreviated accounts for 2012 that show a drop in accumulated profits during the year to £1.7 million, from £1.9 million at the end of 2011. There is little else in the accounts that would give an indication as to how business is going.

McAdam Foods, meanwhile, is continuing with its legal proceedings against ABP for alleged defamation. It says the Larry Goodman behemoth issued a false press state- ment saying it had been supplied with Polish meat that contained horsemeat by McAdam, something which Martin McAdam says is not true and which he claims was said by AB|P to deflect media attention from it at the height of the controversy. The case is being contested by ABP.