Queen's master of the horse linked to Sodexo horse meat discovery
A company chaired by the Queen's master of the horse, Lord Vestey, has confirmed that it supplied Sodexo with meat products labelled as beef but containing horse meat.
In a statement on the website of Vestey Foods UK, which has been chaired by Lord Vestey since 1995, the company said: "Vestey Foods UK confirms that it has supplied Sodexo with meat products manufactured by GA international Food Services Ltd and that, in cooperation with the Food Standards Agency, a programme of DNA testing on manufactured beef products from all our beef suppliers has been in place for some weeks. More detailed results from these tests are due back at the end of March."
Sodexo pulled all of its frozen beef products from its UK operations at the end of February.
In a statement it said: "Despite repeated guarantees from our suppliers, our sampling has identified a frozen beef product which tested positive for equine DNA. This situation is totally unacceptable.
"We felt the only appropriate response was to withdraw not only this product but all frozen beef products. We will only re-admit into our catering operations products that have affirmatively passed DNA testing, pursuant to laboratory test criteria."
The supplier to Sodexo was not revealed at the time.