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Comment by Joeri | Hacker News Reader

In my view the horsemeat-as-beef scandal demonstrates that the system works and that mislabeled meat gets detected. In this case the meat was perfectly edible, it was just mislabeled.

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Was it perfectly edible? My understanding of the fiasco is that it was not simply calling horsemeat beef or some other meat. My understanding is that the horsemeat found in packages originated from meat labeled as not for human consumption, meaning that particular horsemeat had not gone through the same safety inspection normally given to meat which is labeled as for human consumption. To me, this seems that the horsemeat might not be perfectly edible.

No it wasn’t – horsemeat if meant for human consumption is edible, but meat from racing horses, for example, isn’t. Those having to dispose of such horses even have to pay the renderer for their service, and this was the real problem here, even though the media tended to get more concerned about ‘HORSE meat!!!!’.

But, as the GP said, this so far seems to be a singular incident of a single producer trying to make an extra profit, which I don’t really think justifies throwing the entire system overboard.

True in most cases, but there was at least one Dutch company that also mixed rotten meat into its products.

Do we know how long the horsemeat went undetected, though?

If memory serves me correctly, around 6-12 months.

A bit less: http://www.bing.com/search?q=horsemeat+scandal+timeline&... p=-1&sk=

They think it started in August 2012, and it was detected in January 2013...

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