Takeaway Owners to Face New Testing Programme
A watchdog has found that “nearly a third of lamb takeaway it checked contained a different meat.”
Owners of takeaways will now have to face a new testing programme. According to the Food Standard Agency (FSA), out of the 145 samples taken of lamb takeaways; 43 were wrongly described. This has resulted in about 300 samples of lamb from curries and kebabs which are to be tested. Any takeaway that doesn’t comply will be fined up to £5,000.
Andrew Rhodes, chief operating officer at the FSA, said, “”Prosecutions have taken place against business owners for mislabelling lamb dishes, but the recurring nature of the problem shows there needs to be a renewed effort to tackle this problem. Clearly the message isn’t getting through to some businesses.”
Testing lamb takeaways in Birmingham and London, consumer organistion Which? found 40% contained “other types of meat, with some containing no lamb at all.”
Richard Lloyd, the executive director of Which? said, “The government, local authorities and the FSA need to make tackling food fraud a priority and take tougher action to crack down on the offenders,”
