In June 2011 the company had to withdraw of
mince because of suspected contamination by
E.coli, which causes potentially fatal food poisoning. Spanghero is implicated in the
2013 horse meat contamination scandal, having supplied meat labelled as beef but actually
horse to
Comigel, which was then used in frozen food products such as
lasagne, sold in the
United Kingdom, France, Germany and
Sweden. The company stated that it had not opened the packages of frozen meat product before sending them on to the
Luxembourg factory of the Comigel subsidiary Tavola. The packages had been labelled
minerai de bœuf désossé surgelé (origine Roumanie), meaning "frozen boneless beef bulk packs (origin
Romania)". Spanghero also said that they wanted to be sure that it was the product that they had supplied that was in question, because they were not Tavola's only supplier. Spanghero president Barthélémy Aguerre denied the claims and several workers demonstrated against the suspension, while
consumer protection minister
Benoît Hamon defended the government's decision. On 18 February,
Stéphane Le Foll,
Minister of Agriculture, Food and Forestry announced that he had "sufficient evidence" to restore all the company's licences (meat cutting, charcuterie,...) except frozen storage. In March 2013, food inspectors found 57 tonnes of frozen sheepmeat at Spanghero, that had been imported from the United Kingdom and that included
mechanically recovered meat (MSM). MSM is banned in the European Union, as it may contain fragments of bone. Bones of bovines, ovines or caprids may not be imported into EU countries from countries with a risk of spongiform encephalopathies; this includes the UK, following the
mad cow disease outbreak of the 1990s, and the prevalence of
scrapie among sheep there. Spanghero blamed its supplier Draap (the
Dutch word for "horse" reversed) for false labelling. ==A New Start==