Expert calls for slaughter dates on meat after bacteria-tainted steak report

Consumers should be told when meat was slaughtered, a food safety expert has suggested after DR programme Kontant found 30 steaks sold by Rema 1000 that were deemed unfit for human consumption.

Tine Hald, a professor at the DTU National Food Institute, said a slaughter date would help consumers understand how long food had been in circulation. It could also assist food authorities during inspections, she told DR.

The packaging on the steaks did not state when the animals had been slaughtered. The meat, supplied by Danish Crown, had a shelf life of up to four months, according to the report.

“I think consumers have a right to know how long a food product has been in transit, from when it was slaughtered or harvested until it reaches the refrigerated display,” Hald said.

She said a use-by date should normally be sufficient, but the Kontant investigation showed that the system could fail.

“If everything worked perfectly, it would be enough to know whether you should avoid eating something after a particular date. But you can see that there are places where it does not work,” Hald said.

Hald also believes consumers should be able to see when fruit and vegetables were harvested.

Politicians disagree over whether slaughter dates should be required. Rasmus Vestergaard, the Red-Green Alliance’s spokesperson for food, animal welfare and agriculture, supports the proposal.

“It is problematic that we do not know how old the meat is. It would make sense for meat, but also for other products, to show when the animal was slaughtered or when the product was harvested,” he said.

Frederik Bloch Münster, the Conservative Party’s spokesperson for agriculture and food, does not believe another date label is the solution, although he described the meat tested by Kontant as “extremely disgusting”.

“We already have a use-by date, and more labelling schemes would simply make things more cumbersome for companies, importers and, ultimately, consumers. Consumers are the ones who pay for it in the end,” he said.

Bloch Münster said he plans to ask the minister whether food authorities’ spot checks are sufficient. “Danes must be able to trust that when they buy something in a supermarket, they can eat it without becoming ill,” he said.

Vestergaard said an additional date would not be a significant burden, since packaging already states where an animal was raised and slaughtered.

Danish Crown said it had carried out its own investigation of the same type of steaks after Kontant’s analysis and found the results satisfactory. However, the company said it had tightened its internal controls and reduced the shelf life based on the researchers’ findings.

The company added that it receives very few complaints and that the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration had never issued remarks about its handling or shelf-life assessment of the meat from Uruguay.

Rema 1000 said it takes food safety very seriously, but pointed to Danish Crown’s own analysis and the fact that the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration had raised no concerns during its inspections.

The Uruguayan steaks were phased out and sold until the end of June. The supermarket chain and Danish Crown said the meat now comes from Denmark and Germany, a change that had been planned before Kontant contacted them.