UK frozen food retailer Iceland Foods has confirmed beef steak on sale at its store in the Czech Republic has been found to contain horsemeat.
Iceland said Czech tests found a batch of diced beef steak with a best-before date of 30 May 2013 contained over 1% horsemeat.
The retailer said the batch was manufactured a year ago and is no longer on sale at any Iceland store in the UK or overseas franchised outlet. Iceland stop using the supplier in November.
In February, at the height of national and international media attention into the horsemeat contamination across Europe, Iceland chief executive Malcolm Walker described the saga as “a storm in a teacup”.
A monthe earlier, when the contamination was first revealed by Irish food ssafety officials in products made at three plants owned by Ireland’s ABP Food Group, Iceland was among a group of retailers that recalled burgers.
However, Iceland said the Irish tests were “unaccredited”. It said the threshold used by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) found traces of equine DNA at a level of 0.1%.
