French prosecutors are investigating how horse meat was sold as beef, the country's consumer affairs minister said Thursday.
The announcement comes as UK inspectors said that horse carcasses contaminated with an equine painkiller harmful to humans may have entered the food chain in France.
A number of meat plants that handled the horse meat as it made its way through the food chain are facing questions about what they knew and whether fraud was involved.
Consumer Affairs Minister Benoit Hamon said the French firm Spanghero should have known that the meat it labeled as beef was actually horse, the latest twist in a Europe-wide crisis over rogue horse meat in beef products.
Spanghero was the first company to label the meat as beef, the minister said, adding that 750 tons of horse meat were involved over a period of at least six months.
Read - French investigate source of horse meat labeled as beef
Previously:
Horse: Coming soon to a meat case near you?
Poll – making a meal of mustang
HmmmI...I a certain this is the French rugby I ants firm. He was here at Stan's several years ago.
How many naysayers will denounce horse meat without even tasting it?
I've never eaten horse meat and am curious about how it tastes. Does it gallop in your mouth as you chew? Or does it simply trot around until you swallow. SO. MANY. QUESTIONS. . . .
What a stupid dumb statement. Should imagine if we minced you up and put you in burgers, we would puke !!!!!
No. If we minced urbanfooddude, put him in burgers , and then ate him, we would just wind up incredible stupid.