The beasts in your biltong

The meat labelling scandal continues to leave a bitter taste in consumers' mouths - and now it has been revealed that, in some instances, horse and giraffe meat have been sold as constituents of game biltong.

A new authenticity study by the University of the Western Cape indicated that about 80% of local meat products have misleading labels.

More than 10000 farms produce game biltong for South Africa.

Researchers analysed 146 samples of game meat from supermarkets and wholesalers and found that more than 100 were mislabelled.

University of the Western Cape associate professor Maria Eugenia d'Amato said 92% of the samples labelled as kudu meat included meat from other species .

Most samples of springbok and ostrich biltong contained horse, impala, hartebeest, giraffe and kangaroo.

"Worryingly, one sample labelled 'zebra' was actually mountain zebra, a red-listed species threatened with extinction," said D'Amato.

"The delivery of unidentifiable animal carcasses to market and the general lack of regulation increases the chances of mislabelling and fraud," she said.

"This has implications for species safety but also has cultural and religious implications."

D'Amato would not name the supermarkets and wholesalers from which the samples were purchased. She said the study was run between 2010 and last year.

"We came up with the idea a few years ago but it was very difficult to collect recent samples because there was [little] information on the databases about some wild species that we needed to compare.

"That delayed the publication of the study."

The government announced yesterday that the National Consumer Commission would launch an urgent investigation into the incorrect labelling of meat products.

This followed a University of Stellenbosch study that revealed that goat, water buffalo and donkey meat had been found in burger patties and mince meat.

The Red Meat Industry Forum has urged scientists to report the labelling transgressors to the authorities.

But there is hope for consumers. The Western Cape study found that DNA bar codes could be used to identify meat products.

"This technique is also able to provide new information about the identity of animals and we found several animals whose DNA had been misidentified in the scientific libraries," said D'Amato.

She said it would be ideal if the government tightened legislation on food labelling.

"I think we need to sit down together and see what can be done because it is the consumers who are affected."