Chevalburgers

[Clair]

Comigel, suppliers of frozen lasagna to Findus: http://www.comigel.com/

"Le numéro que vous avez demandé n'est pas attribué."  [Www]

[Quillan]

Come on Fred you can't blame the EU for this, its down to individual countries, its the same as you couldn't blame the EU for the guy making the dodgy breast implants either.

I have been looking round the French newspapers to see if there is anything on Findus and Comigel (the French company that produced the lasagna) but there is very little. Strange really because they make this meal for many supermarkets throughout Europe and of course France.

"As beef is from a source that is tagged and followed from birth to slaughter everything that happens in the animals life is recorded and records are available for inspection ."

That's why you should give every immigrant a cow in the UK. At least your be able to find them [;-)]

[Frederick]

Q Wrote  :I have been looking round the French newspapers to see if there is

anything on Findus and Comigel (the French company that produced the

lasagna) but there is very little. Strange really because they make this

meal for many supermarkets throughout Europe and of course France.

 Perhaps I should have wrote EU wide scam then ?   As for giving immigrants cows ..... their  tags  could be a good idea

[Chancer]

I think that all of the horsemeat that I have bought and eaten has come from Argentina and Uruguay, they have huge free range horse farms, I doubt that any racehorses enter the processing plants but the farmed horses may well be fed other nasties like growth hormones.

Anyone know that if stuff is banned in Europe there is anything to stop the supermarkets buying it from latin america?

[Ivor Nidea]

Continuing my earlier post about the additives having an effect on gender alteration. I recall a couple of years ago when visiting family in Spain to do some DIY, when I was told to ask for the sales assistant with the black moustache in the ferreteria, turns out her name was Claudia!

[Quillan]

[quote user="Frederick"]
 Perhaps I should have wrote EU wide scam then ?   As for giving immigrants cows ..... their  tags  could be a good idea

[/quote]

Bit like encouraging single pensioners to take a pickaxe handle to a police car. At least you will get three square meals a day, checked every 4 hours, TV, exercise, gym, warm cloths, heating and you won't have to worry about getting mugged or somebody amputating the wrong leg. [;-)] Actually why bother trying to fix this Staffordshire hospital, just swap the patients for prisoners, at least the patients will get better treatment and the criminal scum what they rightly deserve. [:D]

[Rabbie]

[quote user="Frederick"] Today  I was informed we eat no more processed meals like lasagne  by Findus or anybody else   It would appear if the cow is not mooing  outside my front door beef is off the menu  !   When it comes to horses in the food chain .  I do not know of any horses that are reared for the table  Perhaps some are ?   As beef is from a source that is tagged and followed from birth to slaughter  everything that happens in the animals life is recorded and  records are  available for inspection .  Do all  horses have papers  on which by law any drugs given have to be recorded ? I understand from the papers that. the drug Bute is heavily used by horse owners and an animal having been injected with it is not fit for human consumption .  Another EU Scam Passing horse off as beef that appears to be years old that needs shutting down.to add to the list like the antifreeze in Italian wine and the Bulls blood in the French red wine that had to be dealt with. 
[/quote]All horses in the UK are supposed to be microchipped and have a passport. I believe this is an EU requirement but I am not sure about that. The UK equine passport states whether the horse is intended for human consumption or not. If it is for human consumption then this should be changed if it is prescribed certain drugs. The problems arise because bute for example is dispensed in sachets and an owner may receive 60 at one time. This means that some bute can be given to a horse it was not prescribed for. Also because there are several authorities allowed to issue passports It is possible for a horse to have two passports - one in which drugs are recorded and another which shows it to be fit for human consumption

[idun]

[quote user="Frederick"]Q Wrote  :I have been looking round the French newspapers to see if there is

anything on Findus and Comigel (the French company that produced the

lasagna) but there is very little. Strange really because they make this

meal for many supermarkets throughout Europe and of course France.

 Perhaps I should have wrote EU wide scam then ?   As for giving immigrants cows ..... their  tags  could be a good idea [/quote]

It is one of the headlines on France 2 Journal de 20heures ce soir.

Have yet to see what they say about it, but a report will be on TV5 Monde in a few minutes.

[Jay]

Recently there was a Super U special on Findus products. We bought what we thought were nice looking cod fillets in batter, a nice picture on the front of the packet with white flaky fish & crispy batter sealed the deal. What a disappointment when we came to eat them! Instead of white fish fillet it was mashed up grey mush in batter. As we still had the packet & receipt I complained to Findus but was passed from one person to another until I got totally fed up and gave up. I swore then we would never buy another Findus product! Super U give a refund if you are not satisfied - one good reason for shopping there.

[Clair]

News item HERE (translation)

Edit: another article mentions the meat supplied to Tavola, Comigel's subsidiary in Luxemburg, to make frozen meat products for Swedish company Findus, came from a French supplier called Spanghero, based in Castelnaudary (Aude) who had imported it from an unnamed Romanian producer.

It was simply labelled as "origine CE" (EU origin).

[Gardian]

Nice link Clair.

So .................. if I've got this right, a 'meat' product processed & transported from Romania to southern France for further processing, & then transported to Luxembourg for further processing & packaging: then distributed to consumers in the EU?

If we ever wondered what all the lorries on the French motorways were doing, we now have some sort of idea.

Now, I seem to remember being charged more than a few quid in order to save the world on my last flight back to the UK. Is someone taking the p1ss?    

p.s. This whole business is now being referred to as 'Horsegate' in the French media. 

[Clair]

This whole business reinforces my decision to not buy processed meat products.

I can't think of the last time I bought ready-made lasagna, meatballs or frozen burgers.

[Théière]

[quote user="Gardian"]

Nice link Clair.

So .................. if I've got this right, a 'meat' product processed & transported from Romania to southern France for further processing, & then transported to Luxembourg for further processing & packaging: then distributed to consumers in the EU?

If we ever wondered what all the lorries on the French motorways were doing, we now have some sort of idea.

Now, I seem to remember being charged more than a few quid in order to save the world on my last flight back to the UK. Is someone taking the p1ss?    

p.s. This whole business is now being referred to as 'Horsegate' in the French media. 

[/quote]

Then there is the bottled water saga, where precious people must have the water from a special region and it must be harvested before dawn when the moon is waxing and only collected by virgins................Just before it makes it's journey across Europe by road.......

It's collected, stored in huge stainless steel vats and under strict EU rules treated by all sorts of chemicals and the fiz is knocked out of it so it can be re fizzed by the EU approved Co2.

Difficult to find unprocessed meat products unless you go to the source. 

[sid]

I was disappointed this morning to see the Minister, Owen Paterson, responding to questioning about whether Findus knew about this problem (BBC Breakfast) and he said that ultimately the responsibility for lay with the retailers! He said this a couple of times. How can this be right? If you're going to pass the buck you may as well blame the consumer for buying the stuff!  Surely the responsibility is with the companies who supply the meat and the companies who make, package, and put their names on these products.

We're going to have to "Find us" something more wholesome and relaible.  [:-))]

[Ivor Nidea]

Who regularly buys ready made meals anyway, and what is the reasoning? I can understand why a busy working person might not want to prepare a meal after a hard working day so will just heat up a boil-in-a-box meal but not everyday, would they?

On the news yesterday a retired couple said that the Findus Lasagne was their favourite meal. Isn't it a lot better, and cheaper, to make your own? I would imagine that buying ready made meals is much more expensive isn't it?

Perhaps the more aware of you can tell me as I am a relatively new cook for myself person and cannot recall ever buying a ready meal.

Some time ago I was at my son's home and we were having a meal that his wife had prepared earlier, as she was going out for the evening. We only had to cook some rice to go with it, she said. Out of the fridge came a bag of ready cooked rice and peas which just had to be heated up!! I would have thought that a bag of rice and a bag of frozen peas would have been much more economical and most probably not have taken longer to cook. Is this habit of ready prepared food the fashion nowadays?

In saying that you ought to see the state of my kitchen after my meal has been prepared and cooked, it looks like a disaster zone.

[idun]

Ready made meals. My Dad, he buys them now. All his life he has had home made food, he has always cooked and baked. When my mother died, he continued and took great pride in inviting people to eat his hearty fayre. However, in the last couple of years, he has bought more and more ready made meals and more and hardly cooks any more.

He comes here to eat about once a week (he won't come any more) and I have volunteered to make meals, but for him, that would be giving up his independence and he doesn't want that. The only thing he has allowed me to do is take him to Aldi about once every 10 days. The rest of his shopping he usually gets himself. When I pointed out that these meals were not as healthy as they could be, he says what harm can they do at his age, nearly 89.

[Clair]

[quote user="Ivor Nidea"]Who regularly buys ready made meals anyway, and what is the reasoning?[/quote]

In most modern households, both parents work full-time, sometimes having to commute some distance between home and work place.

In these instances, unless someone in the household is willing to prepare food at weekends, to be reheated or cooked at short notice during the week, it is easier to stock on ready-meals and have them on the table within 15-20 mn of stepping through the door, without the need to wash, peel or slice.

Not an excuse, but simple reasoning.

Mr Clair used to work from 7 in the morning till 8 or 9 in the evening, and if I was not back from work in time to prepare something, it was either a take-away or a ready-meal.

[Frederick]

[quote user="idun"]Ready made meals. My Dad, he buys them now. All his life he has had home made food, he has always cooked and baked. When my mother died, he continued and took great pride in inviting people to eat his hearty fayre. However, in the last couple of years, he has bought more and more ready made meals and more and hardly cooks any more.

He comes here to eat about once a week (he won't come any more) and I have volunteered to make meals, but for him, that would be giving up his independence and he doesn't want that. The only thing he has allowed me to do is take him to Aldi about once every 10 days. The rest of his shopping he usually gets himself. When I pointed out that these meals were not as healthy as they could be, he says what harm can they do at his age, nearly 89.

[/quote]

And long may he continue . I hope I am able to do the same  at 89.. I had a neighbor in his 80,s who soldiered on alone with meals delivered to him by a company who advertises on TV. He just had to heat them up ...

This matter is going to grow as there are so many people who are fed by the pre- prepared food industry Schools Hospitals Prisons  the Military.. Hospitals

Its big  business many millions spent on it . And where there is big money there are big fiddles .....I suspect  But will we see anybody in the dock... I doubt it .

[YCCMB]

[quote user="Clair"][quote user="Ivor Nidea"]Who regularly buys ready made meals anyway, and what is the reasoning?[/quote]

In most modern households, both parents work full-time, sometimes having to commute some distance between home and work place.

In these instances, unless someone in the household is willing to prepare food at weekends, to be reheated or cooked at short notice during the week, it is easier to stock on ready-meals and have them on the table within 15-20 mn of stepping through the door, without the need to wash, peel or slice.

Not an excuse, but simple reasoning.

Mr Clair used to work from 7 in the morning till 8 or 9 in the evening, and if I was not back from work in time to prepare something, it was either a take-away or a ready-meal.

[/quote]

Owing to the nature of our respective jobs, Mr Betty and I eat together, on average, only a couple of times during the week and at weekends. This is because I am off to work about half an hour before Mr B gets home.

As a consequence, and given that he will have left home at 6 a.m., having got up at 4.45 am to go to work, It's important that Mr B eats something quite soon after getting home and, unfortunately, I have to eat at around 5 pm otherwise I'm not going to get dinner much before 10 pm.

We're pretty good about not having ready meals. I buy the odd one from time to time, but we tend (in winter - Summer is a doddle as salads are our favourite foods) to live on stuff made in the slow cooker, or cooked at weekends and reheated in the microwave.

By a strange coincidence, tonight we're having burgers. They have been in the freezer for a while and I took a decision that we needed to eat them. They're Tesco's finest. Tesco's finest what, though?[:D]

[Gardian]

The thing that amazes me is what on earth this Comigel outfit were playing at in terms of their internal controls.

Wherever I worked (that was a manufacturing business), there was always a very active Quality Assurance operation. This involved 'test to destruction' procedures and so on. In the food business, you're going to want to be able to guarantee the provenance, safety and accuracy of whatever you're supplied with. Failure to do that would be commercial suicide and that's what has now happened to this business - they're finished.

I can't help smiling though about the French position in all this. For a country that is almost paranoid about the origin of its meat (UK beef exports to France were never that big, but foot & mouth dealt them a hammer blow), they now find themselves at the centre of an international scandal. Oops!! 

[Gardian]

[quote user="You can call me Betty"]
By a strange coincidence, tonight we're having burgers. They have been in the freezer for a while and I took a decision that we needed to eat them. They're Tesco's finest. Tesco's finest what, though?[:D]
[/quote]

I very doubt that you've got anything to worry about, unless ..............  by the middle of next week you start to get a craving for sugar lumps, raw carrots and want to wear metal shoes. [:-))]

[ebaynut]

I notice that Sainsbury's, M+S and Waitrose have not been mentioned in this scandal.

Perhaps more reasons to use these outlets??

[Chancer]

[quote user="Gardian"]

The thing that amazes me is what on earth this Comigel outfit were playing at in terms of their internal controls.

Wherever I worked (that was a manufacturing business), there was always a very active Quality Assurance operation. This involved 'test to destruction' procedures and so on. In the food business, you're going to want to be able to guarantee the provenance, safety and accuracy of whatever you're supplied with. Failure to do that would be commercial suicide and that's what has now happened to this business - they're finished.

I can't help smiling though about the French position in all this. For a country that is almost paranoid about the origin of its meat (UK beef exports to France were never that big, but foot & mouth dealt them a hammer blow), they now find themselves at the centre of an international scandal. Oops!! 

[/quote]

Being a French company they will only be concerned with having the right paper trail of provenance, they would sell on sawdust if it came with what appeared to be the right paperwork.

In fact as what they were processing was sweepings from the abbatoir floor I'm sure there was a lot of that included, anything amongst it that bears any resemblance to meat I doubt would be possible by eye to decide if it were beef, horse or human

[Clarkkent]

[quote user="ebaynut"]

I notice that Sainsbury's, M+S and Waitrose have not been mentioned in this scandal.

 

[/quote]

 

Yet.

[YCCMB]

[quote user="Chancer"][quote user="Gardian"]

The thing that amazes me is what on earth this Comigel outfit were playing at in terms of their internal controls.

Wherever I worked (that was a manufacturing business), there was always a very active Quality Assurance operation. This involved 'test to destruction' procedures and so on. In the food business, you're going to want to be able to guarantee the provenance, safety and accuracy of whatever you're supplied with. Failure to do that would be commercial suicide and that's what has now happened to this business - they're finished.

I can't help smiling though about the French position in all this. For a country that is almost paranoid about the origin of its meat (UK beef exports to France were never that big, but foot & mouth dealt them a hammer blow), they now find themselves at the centre of an international scandal. Oops!! 

[/quote]

Being a French company they will only be concerned with having the right paper trail of provenance, they would sell on sawdust if it came with what appeared to be the right paperwork.

In fact as what they were processing was sweepings from the abbatoir floor I'm sure there was a lot of that included, anything amongst it that bears any resemblance to meat I doubt would be possible by eye to decide if it were beef, horse or human

[/quote]

Agree about the paperwork obsession, but let me give you a frinstance...

Son#2 works in the food industry. No meat or meat products involved, but this is the sort of thing that happens.

A product made for son#2's employers is manufactured by a third party. On a regular basis, representatives of son's company pop along, usually by appointment, for update meetings, to see how the equipment's running and so on. In general, the third party has ample time to sweep any issues under the carpet, knowing who is coming and when.

Some weeks back, son went on a visit with his boss and others to this third party. Previously, there had been some discussion about machine temperatures and throughput. A baking process is involved, and it is possible to speed up the process, and hence production, by running the machines at higher temperatures and faster. However, this is not without its consequences and in this case, the consequence was that a thin, crispy biscuit product became a fistful of shrapnel if you so much as looked at it. Thus, although the third party had asked if they could use the "faster" process, son's company had specifically instructed them not to do so. Also, son's company had just invested a lot of money in new packaging for the product, on the grounds that it would help keep the biscuits intact.

So, back to the visit, which was unannounced. As the group stood chatting by the production line, son took the opportunity to have a look at the settings on the machinery, and noted that, in direct defiance of the instructions given, the third party manufacturer was running the machine on the "faster, hotter" cycle.

Of course, in this case, nobody's life is at risk, nobody's religious or dietary sensitivities have been offended, but it just goes to show that there must be many, many instances of third party manufacturers saying "Oh, go on, do it that way: nobody will ever know..."

Even the mighty Tesco (or any one of the major supermarket chains) cannot, and will never be able to bring all their own brand production in-house, and neither will they ever be able to employ enough staff to ensure that outside suppliers and manufacturers are monitored daily to ensure they're not doing something they shouldn't. Probably the greatest sin in all this is that these big names are, in the name of the consumer, (spelt P R O F I T) trying to screw down suppliers' prices to the point where profit margins - if indeed they exist - are minute. And so corners are cut. And no-one is any the wiser until the excrement hits the fan.