The company said it had pulled six beef ready-meals from shelves in Spain, in light of the discovery, and dropped its supplier Servocar.
General manager for Nestlé Spain Bernard Meunier said: “It is clear this is a problem almost all manufacturers in the food industry now face. There is widespread fraud being committed across Europe. This is totally unacceptable. I want to apologise to consumers and reassure them we remain vigilant. We will test for horse DNA on new deliveries of beef we receive from all our suppliers.”
Meanwhile, IKEA announced it was taking “extra-precautionary measures” by issuing a temporary sales stop on meatballs from a particular Swedish supplier. The “stop” applies to all European countries, apart from Norway and Russia, as well as a limited number of products in Switzerland and Poland.