Tesco stores in Britain and Ireland have pulled its brand of burgers from the shelves after authorities discovered they contained roughly 30 percent horse meat.
The Irish food safety watchdog has discovered traces of pig and horse DNA in burger products sold in some of Ireland's leading supermarkets, The Bigstory reports.
According to Ireland's agriculture minister, Simon Coveney, a meat processor in County Monaghna is responsible, allowing an imported additive used to make the burgers to be packed with horse meat.
The additive, he said, was "either falsely labelled, or somebody made a mistake, or somebody was behaving recklessly. That allowed some horsemeat product to come into the system that shouldn't have been here."
Tesco has subsequently apologised and pulled its Tesco-branded burgers from shelves in Britain and Ireland as a precaution.
Alan Reilly, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland's chief executive, said "In Ireland, it is not in our culture to eat horse meat and therefore, we do not expect to find it in a burger.
"Likewise, for some religious groups or people who abstain from eating pig meat, the presence of traces of pig DNA is unacceptable."