The meat found in April in a hidden cold store near Biała Rawska was unfit for consumption. In a few samples, the acceptable limits for antibiotics were significantly exceeded, the presence of anaerobic bacteria and salmonella was found, the district prosecutor’s office in Łódź reported.
This is the opinion of the State Veterinary Institute in Puławy, which conducted the research – Krzysztof Kopania, spokesman for the Łódź District Prosecutor’s Office, told PAP on Thursday.
The consumption of this meat posed a serious threat to the health or life of consumers. The results of the research indicate the need to consider supplementing the charges against the suspects in this case, emphasized Kopania.
He explained that exceeding the acceptable limits for antibiotics proves, inter alia, that the slaughtered animals were sick. As for the presence of anaerobic bacteria, it proves the poor quality of food, which is the result of inadequate storage and transport conditions, he said.
As it also turned out, a meat sample taken in one of the companies that bought meat from a controlled slaughterhouse showed that the meat was pork and not beef. In this case, we can talk about food falsification, the more so that this slaughterhouse did not have the authority to slaughter pigs – he said.
At the beginning of April, about 100 tons of meat of unknown origin were found in a hidden room in one of the cold stores near Biała Rawska. The cold store belonged to 43-year-old Piotr M. He is also the owner of a slaughterhouse, which could have been used by e.g. sick, dead cattle.
According to the findings of the prosecutor’s office, M. supervised activities, did not meet veterinary requirements, produced food of poor quality, which did not meet health parameters, and perhaps posed a threat to the health of consumers.
Investigators charged the man with fraud and attempted fraud and breach of the criminal provisions of the Animal Health Protection and Combating Infectious Animal Diseases Act. He is facing a sentence of up to eight years in prison. The man was arrested, but after paying 150 thousand. PLN left the arrest.
It was also established that meat from the slaughterhouse was delivered to at least 16 plants from the Łódzkie, Wielkopolskie, Mazowieckie, Śląskie and Dolnośląskie voivodships.
In April, the prosecutor’s office received from the State Veterinary Institute in Puławy the results of tests of meat samples secured in March in a refrigerated truck; the meat was to be delivered to the slaughterhouse of Piotr M. In several samples, the presence of antibiotics was found, and in two, the acceptable levels of their concentration were exceeded. This meat should not be allowed for consumption (PAP)
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