The health services of the Ministry of Agriculture found “795 kilos” Polish rotten meat in “nine companies” of the agri-food sector in France, announced the minister on Friday, Didier Guillaume.
Of this total, “150 kilos have already been recovered” in French processing companies “duped”, said the minister, interviewed on CNews, two days after the announcement by the Ostroleka public prosecutor's office in Poland of the opening of an investigation into the slaughter and marketing of sick cattle by a local slaughterhouse, part of which was distributed in countries of the European Union.
“I think that during the day we will know where we are” for the 650 remaining kilos, “the traceability of products when they arrive in France works quite well” reassured the minister.
“We don't know if they went into commerce., it could have stayed in refrigerators”, he said.
“This is a terrible fraud, an economic fraud, health fraud by a Polish slaughterhouse”, judged the French minister. “We learned about this the night before last and put all our teams on it.”
European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Vytenis Andiukaitis announced an inspection in Poland next week and called on Polish authorities to ensure compliance with European standards. Poland is a major meat exporter in Europe.
The affair was revealed by an investigation by a journalist in Poland, of the commercial channel TVN24, who spent three weeks in the Kalinowo slaughterhouse. He published images of cattle being dragged with ropes around their necks, obviously ill, squeezed into a truck, then piled up carcasses and quarters of meat visibly unfit for marketing.
The Polish Minister of Agriculture recognized the fraud, emphasizing that it was a “isolated incident”.