Horsemeat scandal: Tesco drops main supplier

Tesco has said, it had sacked one of its main suppliers over the horsemeat scandal.

Britain's largest supermarket chain said yesterday that one of the biggest burger plants in Europe, Silvercrest had failed to source, all ingredients from the UK and Ireland as required and had been dropped for "breach of trust" and the meat used in Tesco burgers found to contain up to 29 per cent horse DNA had instead come from Poland.

However, ABP Food Group, owners of the Silvercrest plant in Ireland, revealed that Tesco would continue to source fresh beef from other ABP companies.

According to Tesco the findings from its investigations concurred with those of the Irish government, and that it would now initiate its own system of comprehensive DNA testing.

Beefburgers on sale in Spain were the latest to be subjected to scrutiny yesterday, when tests commissioned by a Spanish consumer organisation found two out of 20 samples were contaminated with horse DNA.

Investigations by Irish food safety authorities revealed Tesco, Iceland, Lidl and Aldi among supermarkets identified a fortnight ago as having products with equine DNA in them, although not all the products implicated had been on sale in Britain.