The discovery was made on Wednesday (24 October) in one out of 240 quarters of beef being unloaded at Cumberland Meat Packers Ltd, Coventry. The receiving company was not responsible for the problem. The beef came from Kroot Vlees BV, of Tilburg, The Netherlands.
The quarter of beef has been detained under the Products of Animal Origin (Import and Export) Regulations pending possible inspection by the Dutch authorities and subsequent disposal under the supervision of the Meat Hygiene Service (MHS). The rest of the consignment was checked by the MHS and found to be in full compliance with the relevant legislation. The Chief Veterinary Officer of The Netherlands and the European Commission have been notified of this breach
The name of the Dutch abattoir concerned will be added to the list of European abattoirs from which beef containing spinal cord has been imported into the UK.
While SRM is among those parts of the animal most likely to contain BSE infectivity, the results so far of BSE tests conducted on healthy cattle across the EU have been described as encouraging, tending to indicate that there is no massive, hidden BSE epidemic in Europe. In The Netherlands there were only four positive tests out of 239,248 animals tested between January and August this year.