Ikea pulls meatballs in Asia, Dominican Republic

Swedish furniture giant Ikea has expanded to 24 the number of countries where it has pulled its meatballs from sale over fears that the popular food could contain horse meat, it said today.

The Ikea-label meatballs have now been pulled from stores in Hong Kong, Thailand and the Dominican Republic in addition to the host of European countries announced on yesterday, Ikea spokeswoman Ylva Magnusson told AFP.

"It's an important product for us, so the measure is significant but we don't want our clients to worry," she said.

She said that a German laboratory was currently testing the meatballs for traces of horse meat, with the first results expected on Thursday.

Ikea said yesterday that it had withdrawn the meatballs from sale in 16 European countries after Czech authorities found horse meat in the product.

One-kilogramme (2.2-pound) bags from the suspect batch of frozen meatballs had been pulled from the shelves in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Britain, Portugal, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Cyprus, Greece and Ireland, the company said.

Stores in Sweden, Denmark, France and Romania withdrew meatballs from sale as a precautionary measure but Ikea said there was no horse meat in the meatballs served in its storesin the United States.

Ikea is the latest group to become caught up in a Europe-wide scandal over the presence of horse meat in ready-made dishes that erupted in January when horse DNA was detected in beefburgers in Britain and Ireland.

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