Serious food safety issues faced the Dutch meat industry

The Security Council of the Dutch meat industry came to the conclusion that food safety is threatened and this aspect of supervision within the industry itself is not enough.

This conclusion came after the Council of recent incidents in the meat supply chain , especially horsemeat scandal in 2013, which were involved in 50 million pounds of meat . While the original concern was fraud in meat production , it turned out later that there are problems in the sector of food safety , because the inability to determine the origin of the product means that it is also unclear whether he is a danger to human health . Worse, the investigation led to the identification of a number of meat-processing companies , which have shown that there are serious problems with hygiene production .

It was also found that many small food operators in the supply chain of meat do not have the knowledge and skills to ensure optimal food safety, and does not assume responsibility for ensuring the safety of meat products supplied by them .

For large companies , it appears that they are more concerned about ensuring compliance with quality control system in the supply chain , rather than the real problems associated with the hygienic aspects of their own production .

Another report , created by request Stichting Maatschappij en Veiligheid ( social and security services ) , revealed that the complexity of the meat industry creates real problems for food safety .

« incredible how widely ramified network is our food and supply chain , and how difficult it is to keep track of each participant - says the report's author Marcel van Zilfhaut - Processed meats fall into animal feed, and thus again fall in production and supply chain . All very confusing and very difficult. "

burger can easily be a mixture of scraps of meat from different slaughterhouses , he continues. "One slaughterhouse may be in Eastern Europe , Canada or Uruguay , the other - convicted of using ammonia to kill bacteria and make the meat less fat and more pink ».

One example of what can happen when meat supplies are not regulated carefully , can serve as a case registered in 2013, when two Swedes got serious food poisoning after ate hamburgers at a hockey game . As we found out , the meat patty in the burger was made from meat and beef scraps that remain after deboning . Meat products was made by the Dutch company in Twente , which imports meat from six slaughterhouses in four different European countries .

The report states that little is known about the number of people who have suffered from the use of such low-quality meat , so it's hard to say how serious the consequences of these control weaknesses over the safety of meat products for public health.