Yorkshire Slaughterhouse in Horsemeat Scandal

13 February 2013, 12:11 | Updated: 30 March 2016, 13:50

A West Yorkshire slaughterhouse has been raided and shut as part of the investigation following the Horsemeat scandal.

The food safety watched dog says their investigations into allegations horsemeat is being passed off as beef, will be relentless.

The horsemeat scandal began last month when Irish authorities found horsemeat in some burgers stocked by a number of UK supermarket chains.

Horsemeat has also been found in branded and supermarket-own ready meals, including lasagne and spaghetti bolognese. Some Findus frozen beef lasagne, made by a French food processing company, were found to have up to 100% horsemeat in them.

The crisis has now spread across Europe.

The raided premises were Peter Boddy Licensed Slaughterhouse, in Todmorden, West Yorkshire, and Farmbox Meats Ltd, of Llandre near Aberystwyth.

The Food Standards Agency suspended operations at both raided premises and seized paperwork.

The West Yorkshire plant is thought to have supplied horse carcasses to the Aberystwyth firm, which were then allegedly sold on as beef for kebabs and burgers.

Slaughterhouse owner Peter Boddy said he would co-operate with FSA officers and claimed they had not “raided'' his Todmorden premises. He added "they are welcome to visit whenever they want. They just wanted to see my records, which I will be showing them."