Dutch Minister of Agriculture Carola Schouten ordered an investigation into the food safety authority in the Netherlands after repeatedly alleging that sick cows are being slaughtered for sale in the north of the country.
In recent years, several cases have been instituted against livestock traders and slaughterhouses for transporting and selling sick livestock for slaughter, culminating in convictions. Now the government should review the activities of the Dutch food safety authority Nederlandse Voedsel en Waren Autoriteit (NVWA). This slaughterhouse monitoring authority was established in 2012, and since then many questions have been raised about its performance.
The investigation began after the January scandal with “sick cows” in Poland, when a local television journalist secretly filmed and aired material about sick cows in a Polish slaughterhouse. Since then, EU commissioners have discovered violations in a number of Polish slaughterhouses, and investigations continue. “We have serious suspicions that the meat of sick animals from slaughterhouses in the north of the Netherlands falls into the food chain. I’m talking about meat unsuitable for consumption, ”said Thierd de Groot, a member of the Dutch parliament from the Social Liberal Party D66.
“Recently, several lawsuits have been instituted against livestock traders and slaughterhouses for transporting and selling sick cattle for slaughter ... We believe that these lawsuits are just the tip of the iceberg. We hear stories from representatives of informants that the carcasses of rejected animals are suspended to the side, apparently, for destruction, but there is no actual destruction, ”continued Thierd de Groot. According to the UN, the volume of beef export in the Netherlands in 2017 amounted to about 2 , 7 billion US dollars. Their largest customers are many European countries, including France, Germany and the UK.