Silvercrest loses more contracts in wake of 'horse burger' controversy

Concern is growing for the 140 jobs at the Silvercrest plant in Ballybay - which remains closed in the wake of the 'horse burger' controversy. Yesterday Tesco announced that it was terminating its contract with the County Monaghan-based plant, which is part of the ABP Food Group. This was followed by similar announcements from Aldi and the UK Co-operative Group. The three deals together are believed to be worth in the region of €60m annually. Burger King had suspended its contract with the plant last week but it's being reported that officials from the fast-food chain will visit Ireland in the next few days to discuss issues at the Ballybay plant. Meanwhile, the parent company of Silvercrest - ABP Food Group - has issued a statement on the matter (see below) and apologised to its customers - though nobody is being put forward for interview from the Silvercrest plant at this time. The management team there has been replaced since the controversy erupted just over two weeks ago after Food Safety Authority tests discovered horse DNA in a number of frozen burgers tested. A total of 27 beef burger products were analysed with 10 of the 27 products (37%) testing positive for horse DNA and 23 (85%) testing positive for pig DNA. The beef burger products which tested positive for horse DNA were produced by two processing plants (Liffey Meats and Silvercrest Foods) in Ireland and one plant (Dalepak Hambleton) in the UK. They were on sale in Tesco, Dunnes Stores, Lidl, Aldi and Iceland. In nine of the ten beef burger samples from these retailers, horse DNA was found at very low levels. However, in one sample from Tesco, the level of horse DNA indicated that horsemeat accounted for approximately 29% relative to the beef content. This was in one of the Tesco products. A subsequent investigation concluded that a geling agent imported from Poland was found to be the source of the contamination. Tesco said yesterday that it had instructed that meat should only come from Ireland and the UK. Meanwhile, the ABP Food Group has issued this statement: "We in ABP Food Group acknowledge the Tesco Statement of this morning. We understand their decision to stop sourcing from Silvercrest Foods but also welcome their decision to continue sourcing fresh beef from other ABP companies. "The ABP Food Group has developed a very strong business - based on trust. We have let our customers down in this incident and we apologise for this. "Paul Finnerty, ABP Food Group CEO said: "We have learnt important lessons from this incident and we are determined to ensure that this never happens again." "We have already implemented total management change at the Silvercrest facility - which remains closed. We also have effected a Group Re-organisation to better manage our convenience foods business. We have put in place new procedures to audit all our third party suppliers. We have also established comprehensive DNA testing procedures - we will become an industry leader in this area. "We are proud of our excellent reputation for quality and service throughout Europe and are determined not to allow the Silvercrest incident overshadow what is a great business. "We thank our customers for their continued support at this time."