No Horse Meat in Whoppers, Says Burger King
Fear not. Your Whopper is not made of horse, Burger King said Friday, amid reports that beef from one of the chain's European suppliers was tainted with horse meat.
Burger King said it had conducted DNA tests on meat supplied to its restaurants in Europe after a supplier was found to be selling tainted beef. The chain found no traces of horse meat in the beef served at its restaurants.
The DNA tests follow an investigation into Silvercrest, the Irish subsidiary of ABP Food Group, which was found to be selling horse meat mixed into its beef.
Silvercrest provided meat to all of Burger King's restaurants in Ireland, the U.K. and Denmark. The chain immediately stopped using Silvercrest and switched to a different supplier as a "voluntary and precautionary measure," the company said in a statement.
"While the Food Safety Authority of Ireland has stated that this is not a food safety issue, we are deeply troubled by the findings of our investigation and apologise to our guests, who trust us to source only the highest quality 100 percent beef burgers. Our supplier has failed us and in turn we have failed you. We are committed to ensuring that this does not happen again," read a statement by Diego Beamonte, the chain's vice president of global quality.
ABP released a statement of apology on Jan 16.
"ABP takes this matter extremely seriously and apologizes for the understandable concern this issue has caused," the supplier said.
None of the tainted meat was sold in the United States.