MOSCOW, February 28 (RIA Novosti) – The head of Russia's consumer watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, has held talks with the European Commission's director-general for health and consumers over the unfolding horse meat scandal in Europe, it said on Thursday.
Rospotrebnadzor head Gennady Onishchenko held talks on Wednesday with Paola Testori Coggi, EC director-general for health and consumers, as meat products from Europe containing horse meat turned up in Russia for the first time.
Russian agriculture watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor said on Wednesday that sausages shipped to Russia from Austria contained both horse and poultry DNA. The shipment, containing more than 20 tons of sausages from the Landhof company, had been imported from the Austrian city of Linz.
More horsemeat traces had been discovered in products from a meat-processing company in Latvia and three others in Poland by Thursday.
According to Coggi, “the amount of frozen horsemeat used is estimated at 750 tons, most of which went to the Comigel-TAVOLA company, based in Luxembourg,” the Russian watchdog reported on Thursday.
The meat processors where traces of horsemeat have been detected - Spanghero and Comigel's Tavola facility – do not export products to Russia, the Russian watchdog said in a statement.
Rospotrebnadzor has not indicated whether it intends to impose an embargo or sanctions yet on EU meat, but said it will continue to closely monitor shipments to Russia.
