Food Service are alleged to have supplied the Silvercrest facility with product labelled as beef which then turned out to contain horse DNA. This is the first time an Irish meat company has issued legal proceedings against a foreign meat supplier.

Paul Finnerty CEO of ABP said the company never ‘knowingly’ provided its customers with beef containing horse DNA. “ABP has always insisted that it never knowingly provided beef that contained equine DNA to any of its customers. This was confirmed in the findings of the Department of Agriculture, Food & the Marine’s report of March 2013,” he said. Finnerty confirmed the company has put procedures in place to ensure a repeat cannot take place. “ABP’s initial focus was to implement systems to ensure this cannot re-occur and establish the source of certain contaminated product. We have done that now and our current focus is on seeking redress against certain suppliers,” he added.

However, Food Service Poland has hit back at the claims saying their ‘innocence has been established beyond all reasonable doubt’ and that they will ‘seek punitive damages to our good name, reputation and consequential losses’.

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Separately, ABP also confirmed it settled another legal action against a British-based meat firm. ABP announced it has accepted a financial settlement with Norwest Foods after the company admitted to supplying beef to ABP which contained traces of horse DNA.