Following the Food Standards Agency’s second publication of industry test results of beef products for the presence of horse DNA, Environment Secretary Owen Paterson said:

“It’s unacceptable for any products to be marked as beef, when they also contain horsemeat. Thankfully these results show that the vast majority of products on our shelves match what’s on the label.

“Food businesses from throughout the industry, including retailers, manufacturers, caterers and other wholesalers, are putting enormous effort into getting this testing completed as quickly as possible. It’s an important first step from them in rebuilding the certainty and trust that consumers deserve.

“There is more work to be done to find out exactly how this happened and how to make the system much stronger. I will continue to insist on concrete, coordinated action right across Europe when I meet European agriculture ministers on Monday.”