Horsemeat scandal is a Europe-wide problem

It started with burgers

In mid-January 2013, frozen beef burgers sold in Britain and Ireland — including at discount chains Aldi and Lidl — tested positive for horsemeat. The burgers were traced to Silvercrest Foods in Ireland. The British government largely shrugged. Then came the lasagne: frozen meals sold by Findus, made by the French producer Comigel, turned out to be nearly all horsemeat. Then Tesco, Britain's biggest supermarket chain, admitted its Everyday Value Spaghetti Bolognese — packaged with the cheerful promise "no artificial flavors or colors" — contained at least 60 percent horsemeat, and in some batches was made entirely of it.

By mid-February, traces had surfaced in France and Sweden, and Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia was investigating suspect frozen-food deliveries. The House of Commons spent two straight days debating European meat production. What had been a labeling embarrassment was now a political crisis.

Westminster goes on the offensive — then on the defensive

Environment Secretary Owen Paterson, whose brief includes food and agriculture, called it a "criminal action" from abroad and, over the preceding weekend, had warned of an "international conspiracy." Euroskeptics piled on: Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin declared that "the EU single market is an invitation to fraud." The tabloid Sun reported that a "grim Romanian slaughterhouse built with EU cash" was one source of the meat.

But the outrage cut both ways. The Food Standards Agency and police raided horse slaughterhouses in Yorkshire and a meat plant in Wales, alleging both had put horsemeat into kebabs and burgers. And the government faced awkward questions about why it had sat on the first case for a month. Paterson convened his second crisis meeting with the food industry in four days; EU agriculture ministers gathered in Brussels to discuss tighter monitoring. The FSA ordered DNA authenticity tests on all beef products, with pork and chicken to follow.

The trail that shocked Britain

The most damning revelation was the supply chain itself. The horsemeat in the lasagne had traveled from a Romanian slaughterhouse through a Dutch firm, a Cypriot trader, Spanghero (a subsidiary of France's Poujol), and Tavola (a Luxembourg subsidiary of Comigel) before reaching British supermarket shelves. "We should not be so ignorant of our food chain — a phrase that used to mean animals eating other animals, not dead ones going bloody Interrailing," wrote Times of London columnist Hugo Rifkind. Agriculture Committee chair Anne McIntosh wondered aloud how fresh even frozen meat could be after crossing that many borders.

Nobody would take the blame. The Romanian slaughterhouse — run by the brothers of Romania's agriculture minister — produced receipts claiming the meat had been correctly identified as horsemeat when sold. Prime Minister Victor Ponta warned against making his country "the EU's scapegoat, as often happens." The uncomfortable truth: Europe had built elaborate meat-traceability systems after the 1990s mad-cow (BSE) crisis, and they still hadn't stopped the fraud.

The lesson

Paterson's answer was regular spot checks instead of trusting shipping documents, plus the prospect of large fines. The industry's advice to consumers was simpler, via Roger Kelsey of the National Federation of Meat and Food Traders: buy local, trust what you're getting — and accept that it costs more.

Archive summary, February 2013, based on ABC News' original coverage: Horsemeat Scandal Is a Europe-Wide Problem.