Ireland's horsemeat burger scandal makes the guarantees on traceability and product standards by some supermarkets look unreliable. The discovery may also be a wakeup call for the Food Standards Agency.
In a special edition of The Food Programme, Sheila Dillon talks to former regulators and experts on food processing to find out how it could have happened and what kind of meat supply chain it has revealed.
The discovery comes as many people monitoring food safety have expressed concerns about cuts in budgets to the UK's food testing regime. Public analyst Duncan Campbell explains why he thinks the two scenarios are connected.
To shed light on the global trade in horse meat and protein products Sheila speaks to Latitude News journalist Jack Rodolico. He's traced the movement of race horses into the EU food supply chain.
New York Times reporter Michael Moss also explains why the UK might be following in the footsteps of a debate around cheap meat sparked off in the US by the so called "pink slime" scandal.
Presented by Sheila Dillon and produced by Dan Saladino.