Near 800 Polish kg of rotten meat found in France

Les services sanitaires du ministère de l’Agriculture ont retrouvé “795 kilos” de viande avariée polonaise dans “neuf entreprises” du secteur agroalimentaire en France, announced the minister on Friday, Didier Guillaume.

Of this total, “150 kilos ont déjà été récupérés” dans les entreprises françaises de transformation “dupées”, 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.
“Je pense que dans la journée on saura où on en est” pour les 650 remaining kilos, “la traçabilité des produits lorsqu’ils arrivent en France marche plutôt bien” a rassuré le ministre.

“On ne sait pas s’ils sont partis dans le commerce, cela a pu rester dans des frigos”, he said.

“C’est une fraude terrible, an economic fraud, une fraude sanitaire d’un abattoir polonais”, judged the French minister. “Nous avons appris cela avant-hier soir et avons mis toutes nos équipes dessus.”

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.

Le ministre Polonais de l’Agriculture a reconnu la fraude en soulignant qu’il s’agissait d’un “incident isolé”.

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