REPORT: More raids in horsemeat scandal, farmers urge shoppers to buy British

British officials investigating the horsemeat sandal will carry out further tests on Saturday after three more meat manufacturing plants were raided.  

Food Standard Agency (FSA) investigators, accompanied by police officers and local authority officials, made seizures at the three sites and removed meat samples for testing.    

Millions of products have been pulled from store shelves in Britain, Ireland, France, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway after the scandal broke, and supermarkets and food suppliers were told to test processed beef products for horse DNA.     

On Friday, several British supermarket chains - including Morrisons and Tesco - said their tests had been negative so far.   

But Britain's Food Standards Agency said 29 of 2,501 products tested so far contained at least one percent horse DNA.     

All were burgers, lasagna and meat sauces sold by supermarkets and catering firms.   And the scandal has also spread beyond supermarket foods.    

Whitbread PLC, Britain's largest hotel and restaurant company, said on Friday that horse DNA had been found in lasagna and burgers on menus at its outlets including Premier Inn hotels and Brewers Fayre and Beefeater Grill restaurants.    

Officials also said horsemeat was present in cottage pies delivered to 47 schools in Lancashire county, northern England, and in hospital meals in Northern Ireland.Tests are continuing, and officials say this is far from over.       

"I would like to see them completed by the end of next week but it is up to the food businesses - it's their responsibility to carry out the tests and to organize their businesses and to provide quality products which reassure the public," Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson, said on Friday.     

British farmers meanwhile have taken out adverts in newspapers to try to win back customers' trust, urging them to buy British meat.    

As consumers look for meat they can trust, some farm shops and high street butchers say they have had a sharp rise in sales     

In this farm shop in Norfolk customers know that the beef on display was reared just a mile away.     

On Friday the shop sold a week's worth of mince in just one day.    

Local farmers hope people will now turn to their local farms and butchers for meat products whose provenance they can be sure of.      

"British products are incredibly regulated and traceable. They are produced to very high standards and if you shop British and if you shop locally you will be assured of very high standards that are very thoroughly tested and that's what we are proud of as British farmers,"  Peter Kendall, of the National Farmers Union (NFU), told British broadcaster Sky News.   

The scandal, which erupted after Irish authorities found traces of horse DNA in frozen burgers last month, has grown to take in companies and countries across Europe.     

The escalating crisis has raised questions about food controls in the 27-nation European Union - and highlighted how little consumers know about the complex trading operations that get food from producers to wholesalers to processors to stores and onto dinner tables.

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APTN