Horse meat from Taunton
Horse meat contaminated with the chemical bute, and which may have entered the food chain in France, has been traced to an abattoir in Taunton.
Latest ITV News reports
Horse meat: what is bute and why does it matter?
STATEMENT from slaughterers on horse meat scandal
Full statement from slaughterers L J Potter, who use the Taunton abattoir where traces of the horse painkiller "bute" were found in meat
Read the full storyHorse meat: statement from Chief Medical Officer
Dame Sally Davies says that there is nothing to suggest a safety risk to humans who have eaten horse meat containing bute, but acknowledges that the chemical does present a minor health risk. She says it is right that bute is banned from the UK food chain. Her full statement can be found here.
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Horse meat: what is bute and why does it matter?
by Caron Bell
Horse meat containing the chemical bute may have entered the French food chain. It has been traced to a Taunton slaughterhouse.
Read the full storyWest Country MP demands food labelling debate
In light of the horse meat scandal, Neil Parish MP (Con, Tiverton and Honiton) today asked for a Commons debate on the labelling of processed food, saying current labels were not clear enough about the product's origins.
Minister: 'long, hard look needed at supply processes'
Kerry McCarthy (Lab, Bristol East) today asked whether the Taunton horse meat scandal was just the tip of the iceberg as far as food origins were concerned. The painkiller bute has been found in horse meat slaughtered in Taunton and then exported for possible consumption in France.
The Agriculture Minister David Heath MP (Lib Dem, Somerton and Frome) agreed that more needed to be done by food processing companies and retailers across Europe to check exactly where their ingredients had come from.
Contaminated horse meat came from Taunton
Horse meat which contained the painkiller bute came from a slaughterhouse in Taunton. The meat was then exported to France, where it may have entered the food chain.
Food standards agents tested 206 carcasses, and found bute in 8 of them. 6 were slaughtered at LJ Potter Partners at Stillman’s (Somerset) Ltd, Taunton and exported to France before the test results were known. A quicker, 48-hour test has now been introduced.
The health risk from eating low levels of bute is low, but it is illegal in food products, and this incident raises questions about how much bute was in the Romanian horse meat that has illegally entered the UK food chain.