Burger King Horse Meat Burgers: Admits To Tainted Meat, Potential Cover-Up?

As if eating fast food was bad enough, Burger King has admitted that some of its burgers were tainted with horse meat. The famous Whopper has committed the most heinous crime in the fast food chain's United Kingdom locations.

This isn't the first time horse meat has been found in burger meat in the UK and Ireland. Last month, several stores had meat that tested positive for horse DNA, including Tesco, Dunnes Stores, Lidl, Aldi, and Iceland, according to the Examiner.

There was speculation that Burger King's burgers were also tainted, but the fast food chain denied the allegations. It had given a released a series of "absolute assurances" that its burgers were not involved in the ongoing meat crisis, reported the UK Daily News.

An Irish-based processing company called Silvercrest, which is part of the ABP FOOD GROUP, was found to be the source of the contaminated burgers. Silvercrest management is accused of using non-approved ingredients, including meat cut-offs, like horse, that had been imported from a manufacturer in Poland.

The news could seriously threaten customer's trust in Burger King and raises questions as to whether it really knows what's going into to its own products. Some theorize that Burger King initially tried to cover-up the fact that there was indeed horse meat in their burgers, at least long enough to acquire a new supplier.

Burger King admitted in its statement that "four samples recently taken from the Silvercrest plant have shown the presence of very small trace levels of equine DNA."

"[Silvercrest] promised to deliver 100 percent British and Irish beef patties and have not done so. This is a clear violation of our specifications, and we have terminated our relationship with them."

Burger King's Vice President Diego Beamonte apologized to customers by saying, "our supplier has failed us and in turn we have failed you. We are committed to ensuring that this does not happen again," according the UK Daily News.

Although Burger King cannot be directly blamed for its current crisis, the allegations concerning a cover-up will continue to manifest. It will take some time for Burger King to fully recover from such a blunder, and perhaps you should think twice before biting into a juicy Whopper.