
On the very
first week of February 2013, Findus withdrew its beef lasagne from the European
market. A few days before that the British Food Standard Agency made out that
those products marketed as beef meat actually contained horsemeat. Findus might
have been suspected of deceiving consumers at first. But it did not take long
before the manufacturer actually apologised for putting those products on the
market and started an investigation about them.
In the United
Kingdom, the horsemeat scandal made a really clear point in consumers’ mind. People
need to know what is inside their plate and incorrect advertisement is not to
be tolerated. The story has highlighted how easily the trust between producers
and consumers could be sapped. But this is not the only lesson of it. In a way,
one might consider Findus a victim among a lot of others, caught in an
extremely complex system which makes it almost impossible to control what a
business sell before a consumer buys it!
Findus’
investigation established that the incriminated food products were prepared by
a French supplier called Comigel based in Metz, in the North of France. Comigel
had worked for Findus since 2011 and had prepared the products in Luxemburg.
The meat Comigel used was bought from another French society, Spanghero, set in
south of the country. As a customer of a French supplier, Comigel expected to
buy French-gown meat from Spanghero. But Findus taught Comigel that Spanghero’s
meat actually came from Romania.
In Romania,
the whole industrial chain of Findus discovered that the slaughterhouses which
provided meat to Spanghero processed beef meat as well as horse meat. That
discovery allowed Findus to reassure consumers since the slaughterhouses were
certified by the European Union and allowed to produced beef and horse meat
that was destined to human consumption. However, the investigation showed that no
less than five intermediaries, including supermarkets, had taken a part in
selling those products to consumers. And none of them really knew what was
inside the products until the scandal burst out!
Findus
withdrew its contaminated products from the marking. And yet this story still
has lessons to teach. The fact is that organisation of the global food industry
today makes efficient traceability a very difficult goal to reach. Of course,
producers like Findus are not completely blind and are able to control what
their products are made of. But the horsemeat scandal illustrates that systemic
factors tend to make information about the products uncertain.
Besides, a
lot of companies around the world use the long complex industrial food chain to
keep some secret. Let us think about Coca-Cola. Do people really know what is
inside of their favourite soda? Of course they don’t since Coca-Cola makes a
point of keeping its recipe unique. That the structure of food industry be
inclined to opaqueness is not necessarily a danger. Nobody has ever died from
drinking Coke, neither has anybody from eating Findus’ lasagne. Yet one
question remains without an answer: which independent institution today
controls that traceability standards are respected in the food industry and
prevents major food-related sanitary scandals from happening?
In many
regards was the horsemeat scandal an important phenomenon. It both illustrated
the fundamental need for transparency on the food market and how difficult
traceability was to establish in the food industry. Revealing the flaws of a
system, this story might very well be the call for a new start in the food
industry.
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