If you thought the horsemeat hullabaloo was settling down over there in Europe, you’d be wrong. IKEA was one of the most well-known companies to announce it was investigating its products for contamination, and now it’s been joined by Taco Bell and Bird’s Eye. Will it ever stop? Let’s hope so.

The BBC says the Food Standards Agency detected horse DNA in its third wave of test results.

Bird’s Eye had two products containing horse DNA, Traditional Spaghetti Bolognese and Beef Lasagne while Taco Bell’s Ground Beef was found with contamination. Taco Bell says all the affected stock has been pulled from its three outlets in Britain.

“Once we learned of this issue, we immediately voluntarily tested our product for our three Taco Bell restaurants in the UK,” a spokesman for Taco Bell said. “Based on that testing, we learned ingredients supplied to us from one supplier in Europe tested positive for horsemeat. We immediately withdrew it from sale, and discontinued purchase of that meat and contacted the Food Standards Agency with this information. We apologise to our customers and take this matter very seriously as food quality is our highest priority.”

Birds Eye said in a statement: “We are introducing a new ongoing DNA testing programme that will ensure no minced beef meat product can leave our facilities without first having been cleared by DNA testing.”

But Really, Where’s The Beef?
Meanwhile in a somewhat baffling case in Iceland, officials looking into possible beef contamination were surprised to find that a beef pie product not only didn’t contain horse — it didn’t have any meat in it at all, reports the Associated Press.

The meat inspector says they decided to run tests to ensure horsemeat wasn’t around, and were subsequently stumped by one locally produced meat pie.

“That was the peculiar thing,” he said. “It was labeled as beef pie, so it should be beef pie.”

Instead, it appears it was some sort of “vegetable matter.” So… yay?

Horsemeat scandal: Four new products test positive [BBC]
Official: Icelandic meat pies … have no meat [Associated Press]

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