EU – Baltic States, Foodstuff, Latvia, Legislation, Markets and Companies

The Food and Veterinary Service points out that Forevers will now have to recall all of the meat that it has labeled incorrectly and re-label the packaging.

The company will be permitted to sell its products, but before that they will have to prove that these products do not include horse meat, or otherwise include labels on the packaging that the meat products include horse meat.

As reported, the Food and Veterinary Service has established suspicious activities with horsemeat at several Latvian slaughterhouses and companies, Nozare.lv was informed by the Food and Veterinary Service's representative Ilze Meistere.

When the Food and Veterinary Service received information about the "horsemeat scandal" in Europe, it launched inspections at Latvian slaughterhouses and meat-processing companies.

416 horses were slaughtered in Latvia in 2012, including 272 at AIBI slaughterhouse. Their meat (203 horses) was supplied to meat-processing company Forevers.

Horsemeat is used in the production of several food products, for instance, sausages, which must be noted in their labels. Horsemeat is cheaper than beef, and when customers are not informed about the presence of horsemeat in products they buy this is considered fraud.