Supermarkets including Tesco and Asda ‘may have been selling rotten meat without knowing for YEARS’

BRITISH supermarkets have been sold rotten meat without realising for the last two decades, it has been claimed.

Tesco and Asda are among retailers believed to be caught up in a rotten food scandal uncovered this week.

Co-op, Morrisons and Marks & Spencer are also checking meat supplies to make sure they have not been contaminated.

A food manufacturer, which has not been named for legal reasons, has been accused by former employees of regularly “washing” hams that are clearly beginning to rot.

It also mixed rotting pork with fresh supplies before further processing, according to a investigation.

It is thought “criminal practices” have been going on for at least two decades and even carried on beyond 2020.

The meat from the supplier is thought to have ended up in ready meals, quiches and sandwiches sold in Tesco, Asda, Co-op, Morrisons and Marks & Spencer.

The food also likely ended up in schools, hospitals, care homes and prisons.

British farmers have also been ripped off, with the factory allegedly labelling foreign meat as home-grown produce to cut costs.

Three arrests were last week made at the factory over the misleading country-of-origins probe.

Products including ox tongues were not heat treated properly and meat was sometimes thawed out on the factory floor, whistleblowers claim.

Two former workers also said paperwork that proved meat was free of harmful bacteria was faked.

One former worker said: “I used to tell them about it. I used to [say] ‘you can’t do this’. [The reply was] ‘Do you want the effing job? Get back in there’.”

There is no suggestion any customers were aware because auditors were deceived.

Former employees said surprise auditors were greeted with a cup of tea, which gave staff time to hide any “suspect product”.

Food was quickly put into lorries, while staff pushed trolleys around so the auditor never caught up with them.

One source said: “It was all a big fiddle.”

They claimed the business bought a small volume of British meat, then used that traceability data to falsify all the products it made that week.

The majority of meat, sources said, was from abroad and repackaged as British.

Workers were too afraid to speak out sooner because of a lack of jobs elsewhere in the area and fear of punishment.

Anyone who said anything was bullied out and given the worst jobs, such as cleaning out the drains, they claimed.

The factory, which is now at the centre of a criminal probe, has since gone into administration.

Retailers are confident there are no current food safety issues.

The Food Standards Agency said it told retailers in January last year about the apparent mislabelling of food.

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) issued a statement on behalf of all the affected supermarkets.

It said: “The role of the FSA [Food Standards Agency] is to work with retailers to prevent fraud.

“While we cannot comment on an ongoing investigation, retailers will support the FSA with its investigation into the individual supplier in question.”

M&S Spokesperson: “All M&S fresh beef, chicken, pork and lamb comes from our UK Select Farms and we have rigorous, market-leading testing processes in place across our operations to ensure the provenance of our products.

“M&S does not take any product from the company in question. Neither M&S or any of our suppliers are being investigated by the NFCU.”

The Sun has contacted Tesco, Asda, Co-op, Morrisons and Marks & Spencer for comment.

Supermarkets are on high alert about tracing meat suppliers after the horsemeat scandal in 2013, the biggest food fraud of the 21st century.

Burgers at most of the major supermarkets tested positive for horse DNA.