Bridgetown.
No beef products with tainted horsemeat have been imported into Barbados. This assurance from Senior Veterinary Officer in the Ministry of Agriculture's Veterinary Services Department, Dr Mark Trotman.
In Janauary, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland reported that after examining the authenticity of several beef products available at retail outlets, horsemeat was detected in some of them.
Since then beef products have been named including some manufactured in and sold across Europe including the United Kingdom and France.
Trotman explained that an extensive traceback investigation was done by his department and to date, none of the identified products had been imported into the island.
"Since the situation is continuing and new products are being identified daily, we will continue to monitor it and take whatever actions are necessary to ensure that none of the adulterated products are imported commercially into Barbados", Trotman said.
He stated that horsemeat was considered a delicacy in several Europen countries and it was not a health concern. However, he pointed out that horsemeat in a product labell as beef was an adulteration and is therefore unacceptable.
