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Tesco ends Silvercrest contract

Wednesday, January 30 09:14:34

Tesco has dropped its contract with Silvercrest, the Co Monaghan company at the centre of the recent horse meat in burgers controversy. Silvercrest is owned by Larry Goodman's ABP group. In a statement this morning, Tesco said it made the decision with regret, but that the breach of trust had been too great. The statement said that ultimately Tesco is responsible for the food it sells, so it is not enough just to stop using the supplier.

The UK retailer is now introducing a comprehensive system of DNA testing across its meat products. "The evidence tells us that our frozen burger supplier, Silvercrest, used meat in our products that did not come from the list of approved suppliers we gave them. Nor was the meat from the UK or Ireland, despite our instruction that only beef from the UK and Ireland should be used in our frozen beef burgers,'' Tesco said. In the Irish market since the late 1990s, Tesco has grown to become the leading grocery retailer in country with 139 stores