UPDATE: Hamburgers for Gwent schools ‘contain horsemeat’ (From Free Press Series)

Update: More Gwent councils withdraw school burgers

5:30pm Thursday 21st February 2013 in News Exclusive By David Deans, Reporter

Butchers in Romania

UPDATE 19.05pm: More Gwent Councils have announced they are to withdraw burgers from their schools after discovering traces of horse DNA.

Caerphilly and Blaenau Gwent Council's have removed burger products from school menus after they were found to be contaminated with horsemeat.

Blaenau Gwent council was, last night, understood to have withdrawn frozen burgers from six schools in the county.

HAMBURGERS supplied to a Gwent council for school dinners have been withdrawn after its supplier found horsemeat in the same batch.

Monmouthshire yesterday confirmed that Holdsworth Meat Products has found the meat in batches of hamburgers supplied to their primary schools.

The council has asked all schools it provides catering for to withdraw hamburgers supplied by the firm and use alternatives.

However it cannot be sure if any burgers supplied to the school have been contaminated with horsemeat.

The batch was supplied to 30 Monmouthshire primary schools as the authority provides catering to all but one of the schools.

A spokesman for Monmouthshire council said there are no health risks associated with the burgers, and it has had no deliveries from the company since January 21.

He said the authority would continue to monitor the situation.

The spokesman said: "Monmouthshire County Council has put procedures in place to ensure that only high quality food is purchased. We buy our meat and meat products via the Wales Purchasing Consortium (WPC).

"Local authorities in Wales take food safety very seriously and have long recognised the need to develop additional layers of assurance in the safe provision of food. This is being achieved by local authorities working together, through the WPC, not only in the way that they appoint their suppliers, but also in how they share information and identify areas of concern."

It was not known last night whether any other authorities in Gwent were affected.

Testing for horsemeat is going on across the region, Wales and the UK after an Irish study found horsemeat in burgers sold in British supermarkets.

Since then horsemeat has been found in a number of products, including Findus lasagna, and several Gwent councils have said tests are taking place of both food supplied to them and food sold in the community.