Horsemeat And The Meat Scandal Essay

Introduction
We all remember the meat scandal back in 2012-2013 that was all over the news. There were some tests on certain types of meat in a supermarket and the content of the package didn’t turn out to be what the label said it was. This resulted in a huge outbreak of tests all over Europe. More and more products came out to be lies. Horsemeat was one of the more popular deceiving products sold on the market. People expect certain standards and assurances when they buy products from a store, this showed us how little we know about what we eat and how it is brought to our plate. It still remains as one of the biggest business ethics violations of this century.
Discussion
The scandal escalated quickly, we don’t know what we eat anymore and it is a very alarming topic in Europe. Britain saw many problematic cases. One of the biggest supermarket chains was no exception to the scandal. Tesco was found to have 60% horsemeat on their shelves. More then half of the meat sold had an origin of false labeling. Many of the products had to be thrown away or were sold at a reduced price with a new label pasted on it.
But why horsemeat? It has a few good economical advantages. Horsemeat is not cheaper to raise then cow meat or many other types of meat but it’s still cheaper to sell. Horses are mostly raised for
other reasons then producing food. At a certain point a horse becomes unfit to work and becomes a burden. At that point it is illegal to sell it as food because you can’t combine food permits of a horse with for example racing permits. If you can mix that particular meat in a production chain of cow meat for example, then you will have a very profitable deal.
Studies showed that it wasn’t only horsemeat that was found to be in the same scheme. Pork meat was found to be in chicken. This can be very offensive to some religions and traditions. A Muslim buying this product will break a tradition that was held for generations.
The most targeted type of meal targeted by illegal meat trafficking was found in lasagna. It is very difficult to find a blame for all of it. Paper work is falsified, we don’t know at which point the horsemeat was mixed with normal meat and it is very difficult to know who knew what was going on and who profited from it. It’s not illegal to eat horsemeat in Britain but that is not the problem. People feel deceived or feel bad about eating horse. For many people horses are like a type of pet. People tend to dislike meat that could have come from their own pet. It would be like eating dog for them. The emotional part in this affaire can be devastating to many people. The meat consumption in the UK and the rest of the western world is very high.
Even if big percentages were falsely labeled we still love it. The production of meat is cheaper then ever; this is one more reason to buy more meat. The consumption rate in one year for 2007 in Luxembourg was 137 kg per person. This shows that we clearly don’t hold back our appetite when it comes to meat. However people like to know what they are eating. Part of the problem originates from the supermarket that puts unreasonably low prices on meat, which pushes producers to cheaper and illegal production. It can be very tempting for producers because the process is not
dangerous.
It started as a British problem and clearly revealed the fact that Europe was one big mess concerning the meat consumption. European countries often have to import most of their food. So most of the time the problem originated far away from us. Western policy’s checked the traceability of the meat but didn’t check the DNA till 2012. This is a big flaw in the European policies. In the 1990, during the mad cow crisis, policies became very strict. Around the year 2000 there was a deterioration of the severity of food safety. Another cause is the deregulation by local governments and even imposed by the European commission. The inspection workforce in the 1990ies in the UK included 1700 employees. It was gradually reduced to 800 people in 2012. This number has obviously increased after the incident.
Another question that this story raises is if that people might be more willing to eat horsemeat. After all in 2012 you could find half priced lasagna with a big sticker on it saying “may contain horsemeat” and the products still got sold. After all horsemeat is cheaper, is better looking in the shelves (horse meat has a redder tone then regular beef) and it has more proteins then regular meat. The fact that many products where people knew that it might have contained horsemeat were sold shows us that price overrules the possibility of breaking habits. This event showed us very interesting reactions for the future.
Conclusion
Looking back at this story shows us just how far businesses can break an ethical code just to have more profit. The story was front-page news for a very long period of time all over Europe. After that it just faded away and we don’t really know what happened. The labeling might be just as bad as it was in 2012. We did learn how little we know about what’s really happening in the world. It came to the point that Tesco in the UK had 60% horsemeat on their shelves. Ethics are forgotten when you have to meet certain price standards. We consume meat almost every day and it might be donkey mixed with beef. The chance of having to eat something that might be unusual for us or weird outweighs the fact that the products we get becomes cheaper. Western countries tend to love cheap food even if it means that we might have no clue what it really is.
Sources
• O'Toole, G. (2013, February 13). Horsemeat scandal reveals unpalatable truth. Retrieved January 29, 2015, from http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/02/201321310116131904.html
Additional information
• Kings of the carnivores. (2013, April 30). Retrieved January 29, 2015, from http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/04/daily-chart-17