Plant is 'not source of horse meat'

ABP Food Group denialThe ABP Food Group has continued to insist that its plant in Nenagh, Co Tipperary, was not the source of horse meat content in a Greencore beef bolognese sauce made for the Asda supermarket chain.

A spokeswoman for Greencore said its investigations were continuing but the food company still believed the meat in the bolognese sauce had come from the Nenagh meat plant. The Asda “Chosen By You” 350g beef bolognese sauce contained 20 per cent beef mince and tests by Asda found that it contained 4.8 per cent horse DNA.

The ABP group said it had carried out a traceability exercise on the consignment of beef that was used in the batch sent to the Greencore Group.

“This involved identifying all the beef animals used in the production back to the farm. ABP Nenagh is satisfied that they are not the source of the positive equine result,” it said in a statement.

The firm said it had carried out hundreds of tests within the group, including in the Nenagh facility, since the crisis emerged “and to date all tests have proved negative for equine”.

Greencore saw its share price fall by almost 10 per cent on Friday after being linked to the horse meat scandal.

* This article was amended on February 18th, 2013 to correct a factual error.