Feb 19, 2008, 13:33 GMT
Amsterdam - Dutch meat unfit for human consumption may enter the consumer's market every day, Dutch food watchdog VWA says.
The information, released in a Dutch consumer's television programme on Tuesday, originates in a letter by the VWA written in October 2007 which the Dutch Animal Rights Party gave to the consumer's programme.
The VWA says it does not have the financial means or the staff to uphold the laws that should prevent meat unfit for human consumption to enter the market.
According to the law, sick animals should be slaughtered on farms and their meat transferred to a meat destruction company, to ensure it does not end up in the supermarket.
But in its letter of October 2007, the VWA says it will have to reduce its inspections of the procedure for the killing and destruction of sick animals to an absolute minimum in 2008.
The food watchdog also says it cannot supervise which additives are being used in meat. On top of that, 25 per cent of the registered companies are not inspected once a year - the legal minimum.
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