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According to results from the European Commission, horse DNA has been found in up to 5% of beef products randomly tested across the EU.

Inspectors also found the banned anti-inflammatory horse drug phenylbutazone, or “bute”, in 0.5% of horsemeat tested.

The EU said it was “a matter of food fraud and not of food safety”.

The three-month programme of checks was agreed by the 27 EU member states in February after horsemeat had been found in a batch of Findus frozen lasagne.

Horse DNA has been found in up to 5 percent of beef products randomly tested across the EU

Horse DNA has been found in up to 5 percent of beef products randomly tested across the EU

“Restoring the trust and confidence of European consumers and trading partners in our food chain following this fraudulent labeling scandal is now of vital importance for the European economy,” said EU Commissioner for Health and Consumers Tonio Borg.

Tonio Borg said the Commission would “propose to strengthen the controls along the food chain in line with lessons learned.”

Of the 4,144 tests carried out across the EU for the presence of horsemeat DNA, 193 were positive (4.66%).

There were 3,115 tests for bute, of which 16 were positive (0.51%).

In addition, member states reported another 7,951 tests for horse DNA performed by food business operators; of these 110 were positive (1.38%).

The number of tests varied between 10-150 samples depending on the size of the EU country and on consumption habits, the Commission said.

The tests were commissioned by the EU amid concerns about possible fraudulent attempts to sell horsemeat as processed beef in a number of member states.

The tests, although not comprehensive, provide an indication of the scale of the problem.

Last week the Dutch government announced that, as part of its investigations, it had identified two processing plants that might have supplied horsemeat as beef since January 2011.

The European Commission believed the EU had one of the best food safety systems in the world but it relied on a complex web of suppliers.

The food companies across the EU were so interwoven that one fraud could have a serious ripple effect across a number of countries.

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Two pranksters dressed up as a pantomime horse were thrown out of a UK Tesco supermarket after trotting around the frozen beef burger aisle shouting “murderers”.

A video of the incident, believed to have taken place in a Welsh store, has already racked up over 200,000 hits on YouTube in less than two days.

The mobile phone footage shows the pantomime horse rolling on the floor near the frozen food aisle shouting “where’s my mum?” before a security guard asks them to leave.

Earlier this week Tesco was one of several UK supermarkets revealed to have quantities of horse meat in its frozen burgers.

Two pranksters dressed up as a pantomime horse were thrown out of a UK Tesco supermarket after trotting around the frozen beef burger aisle

Two pranksters dressed up as a pantomime horse were thrown out of a UK Tesco supermarket after trotting around the frozen beef burger aisle

The alert was first raised by Irish food watchdogs after horse DNA was found in burgers sold through Tesco, Iceland, Aldi, Lidl and Dunnes in Ireland.

It subsequently emerged that burgers from the same batches were sold in the British outlets of both Tesco and Iceland.

Incredibly, the beef content in one Everyday Value burger sold by Tesco was actually 29% horse meat.

More than ten million burgers have now been removed from sale, including more than 100,000 made at the Yorkshire factory of Dalepak.

Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and the Co-op immediately decided to remove thousands of packs of frozen burgers as a precautionary measure.

British PM David Cameron reacted angrily, condemning Tesco on Thursday, saying: “People in our country will have been very concerned to read this morning that when they thought they were buying beef burgers they were buying something that had horse meat in it.”

“This is a completely unacceptable state of affairs,” David Cameron added, calling for an urgent investigation by Britain’s Food Standards Agency.

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