Police uncover major beef food fraud in Spain

A SPANISH meat company in Burgos is alleged to have produced low quality products that were incorrectly labelled as containing a higher proportion of beef.

The meat processing plant, producing hamburgers and other products, labelled the products as containing a certain proportion of beef  but in reality it consisted of more pork, bread, fats or soy.

The company manufactured white-label product that  were widely distributed across Spain.

It is believed the fraud started as far back as 2002 but the nature of the products – hamburgers, meat balls etc – meant that the deception could only be uncovered through analysis in a specialised laboratory.

Significant differences between the prices for beef and the substituted materials provided important economic benefits to the Burgos company.

Fourteen people have been charged in the scandal that the Guardia Civil began investigating in December 2015.