Sticking your neck out can be a perilous occupation.

Not 24 hours ago, we invited readers to take stock and reflect on the horsemeat scandal so far, three months on. We’d taken the opportunity to look at the European Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF), which countries use to warn each other of issues in the food chain. We presented the data from the system in the form of clickable maps, charting some of the movement of adulterated meat around the continent. We even ventured to say the pace of new revelations had slowed down.

Well, this is what happens when you make assertions: the story bolts from under you once again.

Firstly, Asda was forced to recall 340g tins of Smart Price corned beef after some of the products tested positive for the veterinary drug phenylbutazone, or bute. The tins had already been removed from shelves because they’d been found to contain more than 1% horsemeat – now Asda’s urging people to return any they may have bought. Bute is not allowed in the human food chain in any quantity – though both the supermarket and the FSA assure us that quantities found in the Asda corned beef are so low as to pose little risk.

Then, this afternoon, came news the Dutch authorities were recalling 50,000 tonnes of beef that may have been contaminated with horsemeat. As if the quantity is not eye-catching enough, the scale of the recall is truly international: 16 countries are affected, along with 370 separate companies (130 of them in the Netherlands). The Dutch say they are using the RASFF to communicate with their European neighbours – with the UK a possible recipient.

This one-two punch of horsemeat headlines will dismay many in the meat industry – just when the situation seemed stable, it rears its head again.

The bute angle will also concern many for its possible health risks. As Defra points out, testing for bute can take a lot longer on processed products than on horse carcases, which explains some of the time delay between the corned beef being removed from shelves and the recall being made. How many more headlines like these are we going to see?

We’ll continue to keep you up to date on the horsemeat saga, as we have from the beginning, via our dedicated section and on Twitter.

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