Russia finds horsemeat in Austrian-made sausages

Russia says it has found horsemeat in a shipment of pork sausages imported from Austria, the latest turn in Europe’s widening horsemeat scandal.

“Tests on a shipment of Frankfurter sausages found the DNA of horses, chicken, cattle and soya,” Russia’s agricultural watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor said in a statement on Wednesday, AFP reported.

Sausages were labeled as having pork, fat and other ingredients with no reference to horsemeat and chicken, according to a photo of the sausage pack in the statement.

The sausages “came two days ago from Austria,” said Rosselkhoznadzor spokesman Alexei Alexeyenko.

“The shipment is over 20 tonnes,” he said, adding that the company that supplied the meat had been struck off a list of approved suppliers to Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus.

“This is an import of falsified products, the same thing that is happening in the European Union,” Alexeyenko said.

“The source of this meat is unknown,” he noted, adding that old or ill animals could have been used to make it.

Horsemeat was first detected in frozen meals and burgers in the United Kingdom and Ireland last month, and traces have since been found in meat products across the continent.

On February 9, French Consumer Affairs Minister Benoit Hamon said the horsemeat had originated in Romania, although there were links with French, Dutch and Cypriot firms and a factory in Luxembourg.

Romania has denied the charges and Agriculture Minister Daniel Constantin again insisted on Wednesday that “all the horsemeat provided by the Romanian companies that was placed on the EU market was correctly labeled.”

The scandal has raised questions about the complexity of the food industry’s supply chains across the EU bloc, with a number of supermarket chains withdrawing frozen beef meals from their shelves.