Birds Eye and Heinz have moved to reassure retailers and consumers that their products are not affected by the horsemeat scandal.

The companies, which both sell a number of frozen products that contain beef, said they do not source from Comigel – manufacturer of the Findus beef lasagne that had been withdrawn from sale.

“Given the on-going concerns about horsemeat in certain competitors’ products, we want to reassure customers that no meat or ingredients in Birds Eye products originate from the implicated suppliers and that there is no evidence to suggest any of our beef products are affected,” Birds Eye said in a statement.

The company added that its “trusted, long-term suppliers” had assured it that Birds Eye products contained only what was labelled on-pack. “We have instigated on-going checks and DNA testing with them for all new products entering their production facilities to give customers even greater confidence in our products,” the statement continued.

Heinz said that, where possible, it used meat from whole muscle cuts, adding that it was confident it had not received any beef affected by the recent survey of beef products by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland. “We are continuing to keep the issue under close review with our suppliers as more information becomes available about the incident, and root cause,” it said in a statement.

Both companies stated that they were co-operating with the FSA and had begun the testing required to comply with the agency’s requests.

“We are fully supportive of the Food Standards Agency’s initiative to standardise sampling and testing systems for the identification of DNA to an agreed level, and will be part of this industry-wide programme,” said a Heinz spokesman.

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