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31st March 2023
07:31am BST
British supermarkets may have unwittingly been selling rotten meat for years, an investigation by Farmers Weekly has found.
An unnamed food supplier in the midlands has been accused of selling the gone-off produce to big-chain supermarkets including Tesco, Asda, Marks and Spencer, the Co-op and Morrisons.
It is believed rotten pork could have made its way into sandwiches, ready meals, quiches and other goods sold by the brands.
The supermarkets are now urgently searching their shelves and stocks to ensure no more meat supplied by the anonymous company is being sold to shoppers.
The investigation by Farmers Weekly alleged that the unnamed supplier mixed 'rotting' pork into fresh meat.
It also claimed that frozen meat was left to thaw out on the floor of its factory before it was used and that some goods including ox tongues were not properly heat-treated.
Two former employees claimed that sampling paperwork that would pick up bacteria such as E-Coli and Listeria was falsified.
The worst meat was sent to hospitals, care homes, schools and prisons, a source claimed.
The investigation added that the supplier's malpractice went on for decades and may have continued until after 2020.
Three people were arrested in connection with the mis-labelling of foreign food as British during a raid by police at the supplier's factory last week.
The National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) is also investigation 'potential food hygiene breaches'.
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