Swedish government tests give clean bill of health to Axfood beef

The initial testing on beef products, supplied by Axfood to cash-and-carry outlets in southern Sweden, had indicated that the source meat was not beef. However, a more thorough sample testing process revealed that the actual product delivered to three separate cash-and-carry outlets was beef tenderloin.

“The results were negative for anything other than beef,”​ agency spokesperson Christina Lindahl told GlobalMeatNews.com​.

In a statement, Axfood said the frozen tenderloin beef supplied was a hybrid of the two main groups of cattle: ‘Bos taurus’ (taurine), which is the typical cool-climate cattle breed of Europe and north-eastern Asia, and ‘Bos indicus’, which are widely bred in warmer regions.

“The initial tests that were carried out did not detect the hybrid source of the meat, and this is why we ordered the recall,” said Axfood spokesman Ingmar Kroon. Those initial tests were conducted by the food agency on meat products bought by a high street pizza chain in Hyltetraken, Halland province, in Sweden’s south-west region, from one of the three cash-and-carry outlets supplied by Axfood.​

“We would have been surprised if something had gone wrong in this supply chain,”​ said Kroon.

Much of the beef supplied by Axfood is distributed through wholesale outlets for forward delivery to food catering companies and fast-food restaurants.

The beef product recalled by Axfood was imported by the company from its primary New Zealand supplier AFFCO. Axfood said it maintained a strict code of quality with the overseas company.

“AFFCO is a large New Zealand supplier of meat. The meat we purchase is selected from farms and then slaughtered, butchered and packaged for Axfood under our label. There are no intermediaries between AFFCO and Axfood, and we regularly visit the company’s facilities in New Zealand,”​ said an Axfood statement.

Despite the false alarm, the recall reflects the high degree of sensitivity regarding meat quality in the Swedish food market, and follows tests conducted by the food agency, which found traces of buffalo meat in imported product supplied to pizza chains in Sweden earlier this year.

Additionally, listeria fears prompted a meat recall by Danish supplier Tulip in Denmark and Sweden in August, when traces of listeria were found in cold cuts deli-ham sold in Sweden. In July, the Coop grocery supermarket chain recalled its in-store brand of fresh hamburger meat after a routine check revealed traces of salmonella in the meat.