It was found that horse meat could have been used when making beefburgers in UK. Food Standards Agency (FSA) was blamed for failing to give routine testing on horse meat (because FSA believes horse meat products do not pose a risk to public health).

The big food giant, Silvercrest Foods (a branch of ABP), was found to supply horse meat to big supermarkets such as Tesco and Aldi, and restaurants such as Asda and Burger King. Tesco made an announcement today to apologize for the ‘unacceptable’ horse meat and immediately removed all horse meat products off the stacks today (worth approximately 4.8 billion US Dollars).

Horsemeat in Burgers Tesco Removes Product

Because of the government’s insufficient food testing, Silvercrest Foods’ unethical action, and those big supermarkets and restaurants’ lack of strict check of food suppliers, the consumers, as a result, suffered from the risk of eating horse meat from unknown sources.

When I saw this news, I was really surprised and shocked. While the company is using horse meat to make “beefburger,” maybe in an attempt to lower their cost, don’t they know the severe consequences once the consumers find out that the company is not being honest to them? And what if those horses are found to be sick and carry disease? Slivercrest Foods is a large-scale food supplier, and I believe for all food suppliers, reputation is more important than anything else because people do care about what they eat. While lying to the consumers might be able to bring greater profits at first, once the consumers find out the truth, the loss of consumers’ trust costs way more than the profit they would generate at first. Being ethical when market or sell the products is essential for businesses not only because it protects the consumers, but also because it allows the business itself to build a trusting and  long term relationship with its target consumers.