Tesco apology for chicken mistake

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/uk/6694661.stm

Version 0 of 1.

Tesco has apologised for selling chicken labelled as corn-fed which had not eaten enough maize to meet minimum requirements.

The supermarket called it a "completely unacceptable" mistake, caused by a farmer accidentally giving his birds the wrong feed.

The apology comes after tests were carried out on chicken sold by six supermarkets and department stores.

Tesco also confirmed that no affected chickens remained on sale.

The tests were organised by the Times newspaper, which reported that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) Central Science Laboratory in York had found the Tesco chicken "was not in keeping with EU regulations".

All the other chicken samples tested were found to justify being sold as corn-fed.

Defra's website states that the term "corn-fed" means the feed formula given during the larger part of the chicken's fattening period must contain at least 50% maize.

'Human error'

A Tesco spokesman said: "The integrity of our food is our greatest concern at Tesco.

"We conducted an immediate investigation and we have already determined that for a short time the farmer concerned inadvertently fed standard free-range feed - which does contain corn - to his chickens instead of the free-range feed that contains sufficient corn to satisfy Defra standards.

"While this only happened for a short period of time, it is completely unacceptable to us and to our customers.

"We apologise for what appears to be a case of human error at a supplier that services different retailers."