Ikea has widened the withdrawal of meatballs from its stores as an “extra-precautionary measure”.
The Swedish furniture and home accessories retailer said the temporary halt on sales concerned meatballs manufactured by one supplier in Sweden and applied to all European countries except for Norway, Russia and a limited number of products in Switzerland and Poland.
It affects meatballs sold in its Swedish Food Market shops and in its restaurants.
The move follows revelations earlier today that meatballs intended for sale at Ikea tested positive for horse DNA in the Czech Republic. As a result, Ikea banned the sale of meatballs from the same batch in certain stores.
Ikea took the test result from the Czech Republic authorities seriously, said Anders Lennartsson, Ikea Food Services AB.
“The trust of our customers are of outmost importance which is why the concerned production batch of meatballs was immediately withdrawn and we are now taking this extra-precautionary measure,” Lennartsson added.
Ikea expects the results of its own tests at the end of the week. Last year, Ikea sold more than three million meatballs in the UK alone.
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