Beef is set to go back on all school menus (From Bicester Advertiser)

Beef is set to go back on all school menus

9:30am Saturday 16th March 2013 in News

NO horsemeat has been found in Oxfordshire’s school meals, it has been revealed.

Carillion Plc, which provides Oxfordshire’s school and hospital meals service, had taken beef off the menu at the county’s schools while independent DNA tests were carried out.

Nick Walkland, a spokesman for Carillion, said: “Zero horse DNA was found in any of the local beef samples tested, and our national beef suppliers have also come back negative.

“We intend to introduce beef back on our Food With Thought school menus shortly. I also wrote directly to all headteachers using the Food With Thought catering stating that beef was back on the menu.”

Carillion took over the contract for supplying primary and secondary school meals when it was outsourced by Oxfordshire County Council in July 2012.

The company had offered “solid reassurance” that its food had not been contaminated.

Surveys of beef products undertaken by the Food Standards Authority revealed last week that 212 of the 224 samples taken so far are negative for both horse and pig DNA at or above the one per cent threshold.

Last month it was also revealed that Sodexo, the military catering supplier which found horsemeat in frozen beef products, did not supply Oxfordshire bases.