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Contaminated meat from Poland has reached the shelves of the retail chain, which also has branches in the Czech Republic. The State Veterinary Administration uncovered an operation that was selling such meat.
Inspectors found the dangerous bacterium Escherichia coli, also known by the abbreviation E.coli, in Polish steak tartare. The tartare was being sold in a well-known retail chain.
It was a targeted inspection focused precisely on Polish beef, which in January sparked a Europe-wide scandal. Investigative journalists infiltrated slaughterhouses, where they filmed footage of sick, incapacitated, or lying cows being slaughtered there.
Steak tartare
The latest checks revealed that such meat even reached the shelves of Slovak stores. E. coli was found in the tartare: “Steak tartare – meat product, vacuum-packed, 200 g”, production batch: 00949519 with best-before date 3.4. 2019, “ states the svps.sk website. The Biernacki company’s tartare was found in the Lidl chain in Nemšová in the food warehouses on Púchovská Road. It was a targeted inspection focused on Polish beef.
“Due to the possible presence of the E.coli bacterium, we have withdrawn the Biernacki product ‘Steak tartare 200 g’ from all our stores,” Lidl spokesman Tomáš Bezák responded.
“We informed customers about the option to return the product at any store, with refunds provided even without the need to present a receipt,” Bezák replied.
Escherichia coli
The strains of E. coli that cause infection can manifest after 7 days. At first the affected person suffers from a gastrointestinal illness, which can later develop into kidney failure and can have fatal consequences. Infection occurs via contaminated food and water, contact with animals, direct transmission between people, and the fecal-oral route.
