Meat that was exported from the Belgian slaughterhouse Veviba to Kosovo was sometimes 12 years old, reports Het Laatste Nieuws on Tuesday. According to the Flemish newspaper, a court document indicates that a meat truck from Veviba in Bastogne arrived in Kosovo on 19 September 2016. The majority of the labels were torn, but from those that were still visible it appeared that the meat was from 2004.
It also emerged that some of the meat came from the Izegem and Harelbeke slaughterhouses and had been re-packaged in boxes bearing the Veviba trademark. In the same month, the Federal Agency for Food Safety (AFSCA) was contacted and made aware of the Kosovar services' discovery at a food inspection.
The newspaper contacted a professor at the University of Ghent (UGent), Bruno De Meulenaer, who said that frozen meat for 12 years does not automatically mean a health hazard, at least "if the cold chain was not interrupted and the meat remained stored at -18 degrees".
The Brussels Times
