More than one fifth of meat samples tested in 2017 have found to contain DNA from animals not on the labelling, according to the results gathered by the Food Standards Agency (FSA).

Out of 665 results from England, Wales and Northern Ireland collected by the FSA, 145 were found to be either partly or wholly made up of unspecified meat.

A BBC freedom of information request to the FSA revealed that some samples contained DNA from as many as four different animals and others contained no trace of the meat stated on the product’s label.

DNA from cows was found to be the most commonly found contaminant, while meat labelled as lamb was most likely to contain traces of animals’ DNA – with a total of 77 samples of lamb found to be contaminated out of the total 145.