NB: THIS TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A TRANSCRIPTION UNIT RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT: BECAUSE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF MIS-HEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY, IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS ACCURACY. ...................................................... PANORAMA THE CHICKEN RUN RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC-1 DATE: 22:05:03 ...................................................... BETSAN POWYS: Amsterdam, and it's the early shift for one of Panorama's undercover workers. For the past six months we've been on the chicken run, investigating how some Dutch processors squeeze a little more profit out of their birds. You may have eaten some today but this chicken is not all chicken – not quite. They pump it with water, so much water some Dutch fillets end up like this. Britain imports more frozen chicken from Holland than anywhere else. It goes into schools, hospitals, restaurants – it's everywhere. But Panorama has uncovered the real secret - how they keep the water in. The glue they use is made from animal proteins, but not just from chicken! Some use the ground up leftover of pigs and cows. Food inspectors have been trying to stamp it out. Tonight we tell the story of how they're losing the battle. A trail of clues takes us across Europe to a German additive plant that's outwitting the watchdogs and going to great lengths to conceal what's going into your food. Secret filming HIETBRINK: That is what I meant with our special techniques. You can take off the DNA. POWYS: So when the FSA or whoever in the UK tests it? HIETBRINK: Negative… negative. TIM LANG: If you can't detect it, you've got the perfect heist. This is the perfect crime and it's not even a crime. POWYS: This is the dream, a food unspoiled, untouched, fresh from the farm. Not anymore! Chicken is a billion pound industry. It's cheap, it's tempting and it's everywhere. It's the most popular meat on our plates by far. Pulverised into nuggets or smothered in source, you might not always know what exactly is in it. But still we want more and we want it cheap. That means big money, big vested interests, and even bigger secrets to protect. Professor TIM LANG City University, London The meat industry, in both senses of the word, is a dirty business. It's a very mucky business, but it's also a very big business, and there are a lot of careers, a lot of big money at stake here. People are right, I think, to feel threatened. This is a very, very nasty business when you go to the underbelly. POWYS: To get inside the industry Panorama needed help. They got it from a man who's been on the chicken run for years. He told us what some processors put in their chicken and passed on a rumour that a way had been found of fooling the scientists, of hiding what exactly they're putting into our food. An insider felt his livelihood was under threat, so we've used an actor to speak his words. ACTOR'S VOICE: It's a tough business and there's stuff going on the public know nothing about. If I can help you, I'll try. But very few people would dare stand up against the main players and expose their practices. A lone voice against a multi million pound industry, you could lose everything you've worked for all your life. I don’t say this lightly. It's an outrage, but as a lone individual, I can't afford to risk the safety of my family. POWYS: For panorama there was only one way in. If we want to explore the industry's darker corners, we'd have to set up shop – so we did. First: plush offices and an impressive address in the city. Next: a name for our firm. POWYS [on the telephone] Pan Euro Ventures… We said we were keen to invest money in a chicken processing plant, but, before we ventured into the business we'd have to get to know it. [on the telephone] … the company is Pan Euro Ventures. I'm trying to find out how you're getting on with arranging that factory visit for us. We came up with a website, phone and fax lines and plenty of bluff. Pan Euro Ventures was ready to go. [on the telephone] … Pan Euro Ventures… The trail started here… De Kippenhof Kappers Foods St. T. Lelie B.V. Holland Vrieskoop B.V. Aluminiumstr …with a list of companies named and shamed more than once by food watchdogs in the UK and Ireland. They were nearly all based in Holland. Some sold chicken that contained less meat and more water than they'd claimed. Some had used animal based additives. Their chicken proved positive for beef DNA or for pork. The UK Food Standards Agency, on assurances from the Dutch, now says the problem has been stamped out. Our industry insider wasn't so sure. ACTOR'S VOICE: The FSA seem to think it's been sorted, but the UK has been the dumping ground for this product for years. I really don’t think it's stopped. Why wouldn't it? There's just too much money at stake here. POWYS: So who is right? 5am and Anna, a Dutch journalist, is going undercover for Panorama. She'd approached a few of the plants named and shamed by the watchdogs. Slegtenhorst, a firm near Rotterdam, took her on. She'd been warned to expect a world of tight profit margins, low pay and long hours. ANNA: We drove all around Rotterdam to pick up co-workers. Most of them are just immigrants, a lot of people from Africa, Rumania, South America. Nobody works there is Dutch. If you're Dutch you're one of the bosses and you're probably related to the family. You arrive at the factory at 6.15 and you're supposed to start at 7.00. POWYS: At the Slegtenhorst Plant Anna (and that's her real name) is put to work on the production line. For the next few weeks she will secretly record sights the industry would rather we didn't see. These are chicken fillets. They'll be pounded with water in huge drums until they're bloated and heavy. ANNA: These are the two tumblers up there. They just put the chicken in together with the water and additives and then tumbles for an hour or 1 ½ and it comes out all gooey and slimy like chicken soup really. And they scoop it up and put it in the bags. They really don’t want to tell you exactly what's in it. POWYS: 95% of the frozen chicken made in this plant is sold in the UK. Next on our list – T. Lelie – one of the big five firms in Holland and a major exporter to Britain. Their chicken had tested positive for beef DNA more than once. That night it was off to Amsterdam to meet a man who might help us investigate what they're doing now. After dozens of phone calls he's finally been offered shifts at T. Lelie. He wants to be known only as Niko. He's worried. To cover his tracks he's already had to give them a false I.D. number. NIKO: I don’t want them to know who I am so it's going to be very hard keeping up the cover because I gave them a false social security number and they found out already. So I have to make up any excuse to give to working here. POWYS: We wanted NIKO to find what exactly Lelie adds to their chicken, and at their huge plant on the outskirts of Amsterdam there's plenty to sell. Here they process 200 tons of frozen chicken a week. Niko's first job is to stack boxes ready for export to the UK. And this is where they're headed – Rotterdam Docks. Every year from here and ports all over Holland, hundreds of millions of pounds worth of chicken is exported to their number one customer – the UK. It's the early hours and the first of the overnight ferries from Rotterdam are docking in Hull. Last year alone, 60,000 tons of frozen chicken from Holland, much of it processed, came flooding into ports all over the country. A long time in the industry, our insider notes what some Dutch firms to do chicken. He's recently visited Holland himself. ACTOR'S VOICE: The list of companies taking this product in the UK was astonishing! I saw lists on office walls against huge quantities on order. I just couldn't quite get my head around the volumes involved or that it all just seemed to be geared to the UK. We're the laughing stock of Europe. There's so much coming into the country that there's every possibility it's in school dinners, hospitals, sandwich bars, cafes and restaurants in every town in the country. POWYS: But it's cheap, it's in demand and it's still pouring in. Mr Chu's China Palace, a stone's throw from Hull Docks, claims to be the largest Chinese restaurant in the UK. It's a big favourite with a local MP. John Prescott is a regular who's brought a few of his closest friends along too. Customers have complained about Dutch frozen chicken in the past, so have the chefs. We brought this box from T. Lelie, the firm where Niko is working undercover. So what do you think? MR CHU: This feels very soft, like too much water. POWYS: Can you tell straightaway? MR CHU: Of course, you can feel it. It's too heavy and at the end very, very soft. POWYS: There's 30% added water in this chicken from Lelie. In unprocessed frozen chicken, it's more like 4%. What's the difference between that chicken and the quality chicken that you do use? MR CHU: That piece of chicken, you can put it there and compare it. That's absolutely different, isn't it. POWYS: The colour is completely different. MR CHU: The colour is completely different and it's solid. Look, it feels solid. Look, you can feel this. POWYS: Oh this just gives way under your fingers, doesn't it. MR CHU: Absolutely. POWYS: So what is this like when you slice it? MR CHU: You can have a look and see what you think. POWYS: That's solid. You can see all the fibres, can't you. MR CHU: Solid, yeah, that's right. POWYS: And then compare to the other ones. MR CHU: And then compared to this one, it's more like jelly fish, soft. POWYS: On a busy night, Mr Chu and his team cook for 500 customers. He says he has little time to read small labels and even smaller print. How much do you know about this chicken and where it comes from and what they do to it? JACK CHU Manager, Mr Chu's China Palace Well when we order chicken, we only say we want the best chickens. But when they bring to us, we don’t know at all. We once we see the label, but who knows what's inside? POWYS: And what's inside is exactly what Panorama wanted to know. We'd been out buying 10 kilogram boxes of frozen chicken fillets imported from Holland, from Smithfield in London to warehouses and suppliers in Bristol, Manchester, Swindon. We were hard pressed to find frozen chicken that wasn't Dutch. CUSTOMER (Undercover): Hello, a box of frozen chicken, a 10 kilogram box. Great, that's the one. That's the one I want. Is this good? FEMALE: Not too bad! CUSTOMER (UC): How much? MALE: 260 a kilo which is about 1.18 a pound. You know that chicken burger they do? CUSTOMER (UC): Right. Okay. MALE: It's what they use. That's good gear. FEMALE: I mean we sell thousands of these every week, we haven't had problems at all. CUSTOMER (UC): How much of this would you sell? MALE: Well, you often have takeaway restaurants, they are like buying 10 a week. CUSTOMER (UC): Do you sell to lots of restaurants? MALE: Yeah, we sell probably 80 boxes a day of it. POWYS: We bought a box from food distributors Brake Brothers too. They supply schools, hospitals and canteens countrywide. In all, Panorama bought 17 boxes of frozen chicken fillets. But what would we find on supermarket shelves if we did a spot check on nuggets and snacks? We bought 27 samples to test. Wearing gloves to avoid contamination we packed and sealed them in dry ice ready to be sent to the public analysts laboratory in Manchester. They were going to check how much meet and added water was in each fillet. The results would take time. Anna was still working undercover in Slegtenhorst. She'd already seen the tumblers at work, the huge machines that force water and additives into the fillets. But tumbling isn't the only way of spinning out profit from chicken. The industry has a more efficient, more brutal way of doing it. You inject the water straight into the meat. We've been told T. Lelie had two very busy injection machines at their huge processing plant. That night in Amsterdam we met up with Niko, undercover in Lelie for over a week, he'd seen the injectors in action. NIKO: You can see a lot of tubes going in and these tubes lead to one needle, a very thin needle, and they inject into the meat. POWYS: So do you know what goes through the pipes into the needles and into the chicken? NIKO: No, I couldn't see that. There is a storage mixing room on the left-hand side here. And you see two big kettles, and there's a fluid being mixed there through pipes it'll go to the injection machine. POWYS: What does the chicken look like when it comes out the other end? NIKO: It's very wet. It's really dripping wet, and there are sometimes blisters like this on it. The fluid is rather like when you've got a blister, when you burn yourself. It's the colour and it's same substance like that. It's jellylike and thick and it's all over it. And if you push on those blisters, it will just squirt out all the way. POWYS: But bulking up chicken with water and additives is not illegal. If it's on the label, on the box, it's not a con. Professor TIM LANG City University, London The illegality of this technique or the legality of it is almost beside the point. It's trying to sell you water and it's making more profits for them. Do you feel okay about that? I don’t. POWYS: Paris and the largest food fair in Europe is in town. Panorama was there as our cover company – Pan Euro Ventures. Our story was this. We wanted to place an order for 50 tons a week of frozen chicken, and we wanted it cheap. The salesman from one Dutch company, Kappers, was happy to talk cheap chicken. Secret filming Do you work mostly with Dutch companies who further process stuff coming in from Thailand and Brazil or…? SALESMAN: Well we are direct importers and what we do here is basically get product in. Very nice looking product without inner fillet from Thailand. Add some water, and it, well… the more water we add, the better the price gets. And the price is a lot better, of course, cos yeah.. Water costs less than chicken. It's obvious. POWYS: So it's obvious, more water, more profit. Back at the public analysts laboratory in Manchester the water content results were in. First up was Kappers. SALESMAN: Water costs less than chicken. It's obvious. POWYS: Their salesman in Paris was right. The label on the chicken fillets sold by his firm said 30% added water. In the sample we tested, it was more like 40%. Kappers told us they monitor water content levels regularly and are convinced that on average their labels are correct. But there was worse to come. Anna's plant at Slegtenhorst said there was 30% added water in their fillet. Our test found a remarkable 49%! Slegtenhorst wouldn't comment. Jozef Hassan, another Dutch firm. The label had come off the Hassan box we were sold, so we'll never know how much water it claimed had been added. But the fillet tested was just half meat. Dr TIM LOBSTEIN Director of 'The Food Commission' There's always going to be a small amount of water in any meat you buy. But when you deliberately pump extra water into that meat, you're creating a deception on the consumer. You're creating really a fraud, and when it gets as high as something like 50%, that's just extraordinary; 50% of a product being water, that is a real fraud and really deserves criminal prosecution. POWYS: It might feel like fraud, but it's not, as long as the label is accurate. The Food Standards Agency is the UK's food watchdog. When the agency first tested Dutch chicken and found much more water than the label's claimed, it asked officials in Holland to investigate. DAVID STATHAM Director of Enforcement & Standards The Dutch authorities are obviously responsible for companies that operate within their area. They needed to find out why these products were there when they shouldn't be, why the companies weren't labelling the products as they should have been. POWYS: So was it a labelling issue as far as you were concerned? STATHAM: It was a labelling and a composition issue. It's very much a case of this product is not illegal as such, it is illegal if it's not labelled so that people know what they're buying. POWYS: In other words, get it right on the label and you can add as much water as you like. The real puzzle now, was what keeps the water in the chicken? It was back to the Holland. First stop – Rotterdam. Anna was still working nearby at the Slegtenhorst plant. She'd seen sacks of powder added to the water. But what was in the mysterious additive mix? Did you ask anybody what's in the powder? ANNA: Yes, I did but they just keep telling you: "water and mix" you know.. "just additives and stuff" and if you keep asking they just don’t want to talk about it. I asked one of the boys who was working there. ANNA: [in plant] What is in it, in the water? BOY: Erm, it's mix. I don’t know how much.. I don’t understand. Salt, yes? And this. POWYS: This is a list of 'E' numbers, flavouring and carbohydrates. No help there. ANNA: One of them actually walked up to one of the bosses and said "What's exactly in the mix?" and the guy just said: "Mix" period. Just don’t keep asking anymore. POWYS: So the bosses weren't particularly keen to tell you what was in it. ANNA: No, no, not really. POWYS: We knew watchdogs in the UK and Ireland had found beef and pork DNA in Dutch chicken as long as 18 months ago. It came from the protein powder they add to chicken to hold in water. Over a year later, had no one stopped them? We asked the Manchester laboratory to tell us. They test first for the level of something called hydroxyproline. A high level tells you that animal proteins may have been added. Dr ANDREW SMITH Public Analyst, Casella GMSS We found a high level of added water in quite a few of the samples, but also we found high levels of hydroxyproline which is a marker for collagen. POWYS: Collagen is made of protein. You find it in animal hides, gristle and bone. Treated and made into a powder it swells up when water is added to it. If there was additional collagen in the chicken, then which animal was it from? The answer, we hoped, was in Dublin, home to one of the world's cutting edge labs in the field of DNA species detection. Used by governments and big companies, the specialist unit, the city's Trinity College is ahead of the game. If our samples did contain foreign DNA then it would show up in tests at IdentiGEN. Their rules and procedures are strict. They have to be. Contamination must be ruled out. Before it's analysed, every sample is cleaned with special chemicals. LOFTUS: We slice it with disposable blades. We dispose of that blade. We then cut inside the centre of the chicken with a second blade. We dispose of that blade and that sample. And we then go in a third time to collect a meat sample from right in the centre of the fillet that hasn't been in contact with the surface. POWYS: IdentiGEN take two samples from every fillet and test those twice. That's four results for each fillet. Dr RONAN LOFTUS Director, IdentiGEN We have a very conservative approach in our interpretation of the data. We require a positive band to be in all of these four analytical samples. Failing that, we don’t consider a sample as positive. POWYS: So all four have to prove positive before you'll report it positive. LOFTUS: That's correct. POWYS: So what would they find? They tested 12 fillets of Dutch frozen chicken. IdentiGEN found beef DNA in half of them. A fillet from Slegtenhorst where Anna worked proved positive. Slegtenhorst has since told Panorama they don’t use hydrolysed proteins, let alone beef proteins. They blamed contamination. There was beef DNA in two fillets from T. Lelie, Niko's employers. They do use proteins but insist they're made from chicken. Lelie told us their own tests had proved negative. A fillet from the Dutch firm Jozef Hassan contained not just beef DNA but pork too. The label said the product was halal, suitable for Muslims who, for religious reasons, choose not to eat pork. Hassan deny they use animal proteins. Again they say tests they carried out, and independent tests, were all negative. Does the agency object to the practice of putting beef and pork proteins into chicken, or does it just object to it if it's not on the label? DAVID STATHAM Director of Enforcement & Standards The legal position is that it is legal to do this providing you tell people. Now quite clearly, if this is happening and it's not.. the label doesn't tell people what they're eating, then that's totally unacceptable, particularly if that might be something that is abhorrent to people from religious or ethical grounds. POWYS: But if it's on the label it's acceptable, it's acceptable. STATHAM: If it's on the label it is legal. LANG: My response to the Food Standards Agency saying this is just a matter for labelling is – pull the other one! I mean how naïve can you get? This isn't what we want the FSCA to do. We expect the FSA to.. not just say put the information on the label, but to sort it out please. POWYS: Last month your chairman made a speech talking about the FSA's priorities, and one of those was to make sure labels are "honest, informative and useful". Those were his words. This is a copy of a label that came from a box of Dutch frozen chicken fillets. Do you find it informative? What would you expect to be eating if you'd read that on a label? STATHAM: (reads label) Er… clearly… um… you know.. I don’t know the circumstances in relation to the product that is being described here. But what the label here says is this is a.. this is um… chicken, it is chicken with um… hydrolysed protein added with some water and it is chicken that is halal. Whether it meets the requirements of the law, it would be difficult to say. POWYS: As it happens, the chicken did have beef DNA in it. But all Dutch processors have to list on the label is 'hydrolysed protein'. They don’t have to tell you which animal its from. So what about this one? What would you expect to be eating if you'd read that label? The label is within the law. It mentioned hydrolysed proteins. So what animal would you expect to be eating? STATHAM: The label may or may not be within the law. Clearly I don’t know what the nature of the substance was that was.. the chicken that was analysed. But again, yes, this should be chicken. POWYS: The truth is, you don’t know, do you, having read those labels, what might be in those chicken fillets. STATHAM: Well if they are legal labels, you do. If they're illegal, then no, quite right, you don’t. POWYS: But there is no legal requirement to say where your hydrolysed protein comes from at this point is there. STATHAM: Oh yes, there's still a requirement if there is added beef or pork or anything of that sort that is still a requirement in the ingredients list. POWYS: The Food Standards Agency's Director of Enforcement is wrong. As the law stands, there is no such requirement. When you're shopping, the only clue on the label are the worlds 'hydrolysed proteins' and those could come from beef or pork or chicken. Dr TIM LOBSTEIN Director of "The Food Commission" The FSA was set up to increase consumer confidence in the food supply. Unless the FSA gets its teeth into this matter should I say, unless they really tackle this seriously, they're going to lose the confidence that they're hoping to create. POWYS: Industry insiders point a finger too. The FSA was set up by New Labour with an annual budget of over £130 million to fight the consumers' corner. Now critics say it's shying away from real action. ACTOR'S VOICE: What planet are they living on? Chicken should be chicken. It's not about labelling. It's about greed and profit and honesty, and this stuff is so cheap. The pressure is really on processors over here to use it. POWYS: So could you be eating it? On his farm in Somerset, one former poultry processor warns that if you shop in supermarkets then yes, you could. Until a few months ago John Riddell part owned and ran a chicken processing plant. JOHN RIDDELL Former chicken processor Our supermarkets are stuffed full with imported product from countries where they say they have traceability but we know that they don’t. Those chicken are sat on the shelf right beside my chicken, and how can the housewife tell which is which? POWYS: Only now he's no longer involved in processing is John Riddell prepared to reveal the pressure supermarkets put on suppliers to keep prices down. RIDDELL: I know it because I've actually worked with supermarket buyers when I was involved in the processing plant. It's quite simple. We want your grade A product, we'll pay the market price for that. But if you want the other shelves, you jolly well compete with foreign prices. If you can't, import the stuff into your processing plant, reprocess it and sell it as your own. POWYS: Do they say so explicitly? RIDDELL: Absolutely explicitly. We all know what's happening. We can't go public with it or processors can't go public with it because you have a working relationship with these people. You can't blow the gaff as it were, and then expect the next day to trade with them. POWYS: So is he right? What would our tests find? Panorama tested 13 chicken meals, many of them aimed at children from all the big supermarkets. [Advertisement] Jamie Oliver: Shall we have a race? Children: Yeah. Jamie: Ready, go. A Sainsbury's Blue Parrot Café Range. Over 50 new products to help kids eat more healthily Jamie: (turning packet over) Oh… organic. POWYS: Of four packs of Sainsbury's Blue Parrot Café chicken nuggets we bought, three proved positive for beef DNA, one for pork too. The box says Sainsbury's UK processors use chicken from the UK, Germany and Holland. [Advertisement] Jamie: Sorry mate, you can't eat that. (laughing) (Tiger roar) Children: (laughing) Sainsbury's – making life taste better. POWYS: Sainsbury's told us: "The meat in our Blue Parrot Café chicken nuggets is 100% chicken sourced from approved suppliers. We've done our own independent tests and found no pork or beef DNA." They said that beef DNA in Panorama's tests could have come from milk protein, and the pork from laboratory contamination. They did confirm the nuggets we bought could have been produced from Dutch chicken. The box of Chinese chicken fillets from Brake Brothers turned out to be from Slegtenhorst, Anna's plant. Our tests found beef DNA in it. Brake said their tests didn't, but they did find excessive water content. They said they didn't sell much of it but have now withdrawn it from sale, issued a recall notice, and collected all the boxes they could find. LOBSTEIN: If you are, through religious or any ethical reason, not wanting to eat either beef or pork, then finding that you are eating it without having any label, without being told in advance that you had a choice about the matter, is much like me or you eating dog or cat. It's appalling. It's horrific to be eating something you did not wish to eat. POWYS: But with so much Dutch frozen chicken flooding into the country, why weren't more of our tests proving positive? Back in Holland we were about to uncover a clue that would point us to a possible answer. A secret. Proof that some in the industry are way ahead of the regulators and their tests. The trail started with a name we'd spotted here at the Slegtenhorst plant. Anna had been able to get into the storeroom and showed us what she saw. Stacks of boxes filled with powder. ANNA: I managed to sneak in there a couple of times. I wasn't allowed. It said 'authorised personnel only' and of course I wasn't. POWYS: What happened when you were caught, because you were once, weren't you? Secret filming ANNA: Yeah, a girl saw me and I just told her I was lost, but she didn't really believe me but I had my lunch with me and she just thought I was a little silly. POWYS: The coast clear, she slipped back in. There, Anna and her camera spotted a name: "Surplus". ANNA: This is what I wanted. It said Surplus 601, supplement for Surplus 600 and how you're supposed to mix it. But it doesn't really say what's in it. POWYS: So the words beef, pork, chicken… ANNA: No, no. POWYS: Didn't appear anywhere. ANNA: No, they're not on. It says 'Export only' that's it. POWYS: Our interest was in the name 'Surplus'. We'd seen it in other plants, so who or what was Surplus. Back in London we tracked Surplus down. It's a Dutch food additive firm. POWYS [on the telephone]: We're just interested in finding out more about the additives… Under the guise of Pan Euro Ventures, Panorama's cover company, we rang them and said we needed advice on additives for the poultry industry. [on telephone]: … additives that they sell. We're just quite keen to find out who their clients are. The man from Surplus was keen to talk. Another trip to Amsterdam and it was time to set up a meeting with Wil de Kuster. [on mobile] : Hello Wil, it's Betsan here from Pan Euro Ventures. WIL: Good afternoon Bet. POWYS: How are you? WIL: I am fine, thank you very much. POWYS: Good. I'm sorry to disturb your meeting this morning. I just wanted a quick word with you. POWYS: He was more than happy to meet the following day. WIL: Okay, I'll be there. Give me your details of your hotel in Amsterdam. POWYS: Fine. Okay, It's the Tulip Inn Hotel. WIL: The Tulip Inn? POWYS: Yes. Secret filming Our hotel wasn't difficult to spot, but would the man from Surplus lead us to the real beef? We covertly recorded Wil de Kuster explaining that he's the middle man. He buys ingredients from suppliers and blends them for Dutch meat processors. WIL: Surplus is a company, we advise and we blend food ingredients. POWYS: Wil de Kuster says he works to the Dutch processors specifications. What they want, he gives them. And this is the material that's injected into the chicken. WIL: Yes. POWYS: And that binds the water… WIL: Yes. POWYS: So that the chicken holds the water. WIL: Yes. POWYS: His client list was a who's who of Dutch chicken processors, and one message was clear. Adding meat proteins to chicken isn't illegal, and there's one good reason for doing it. And you're allowed to use beef, you're allowed to use pork, you're allowed to use chicken… WIL: Yes. POWYS: You're allowed to use anything. WIL: Yes. Beef and pork is cheaper. POWYS: So there we had it. A very good reason to put beef and pork proteins in chicken. They're cheaper! WIL: Beef and pork is cheaper…. POWYS: How long have they been using beef and pork? WIL: Ten, twelve years, I think. POWYS: So just as the dangers of BSE hit home, some Dutch processors started using beef proteins in chicken. Wil de Kuster says that processors knew full well what they were buying. WIL: From the beginning, we said it against our clients. We have protein, beef protein or pork protein. There was no discussion. They want protein, cheap protein. POWYS: But he insisted his clients had stopped using beef and pork. Now they used only chicken. Pan Euro Ventures had a favour to ask. Would Wil, the middle man, lead us to his supplier? Would he take us to visit the protein factory? It was the start of a long journey. The journey that took us over the border to Germany and to a startling revelation. The factory manager hadn't been keen to meet Pan Euro Ventures on sight, but a hint that we were keen to do business paid off. (Theo Hietbrink?) was there to welcome us. We asked for a quick tour of the protein plant, Prowico, and its sister factory, Bensa. It wasn't long before we noticed some familiar names. Secret filming POWYS: Which one is this? The TRE-C-DF? MAN: That's a bovine. POWYS: I thought I recognised… Oh we're going to see them tomorrow, aren't we? So this mix, ready for Slegtenhorst where Anna works, is right next to the stack of beef proteins. In one of our tests, Slegtenhorst chicken proved positive for beef DNA. MAN: That's a mix for Slegtenhorst. POWYS: So that's a special mix for Slegtenhorst? MAN: Yes, Slegtenhorst. POWYS: Prowico's proteins are in demand worldwide. They deal with all sorts of food firms and sell all sorts of proteins. So could there be a health risk? Could beef proteins carry a risk of CJD? We asked a leading government adviser on BSE. Professor ROY ANDERSON FRS Imperial College, London At the moment it looks as though the size of the variant CJD epidemic, which is the human BSE disease, is going to be a lot smaller than we originally feared, so it's not a highly transmissible, highly infectious agent, but once acquired it's invariably lethal. And therefore all of us would like to know if there's bovine material in a product, and if there is, where did it come from. DAVID STATHAM Director of Enforcement Standards This is not a food safety issue. There is no indication whatsoever that any of these ingredients have any adverse health effects. This is a food composition issue. This is food being misdescribed. This is not a food safety issue. POWYS: And you'll guarantee that? STATHAM: As far as one can possibly guarantee anything within.. you know.. within all the restraints of everything in relation to food production. POWYS: You've just said that you're not sure, there might be beef in this product. So I'm asking you, can you guarantee that it's safe? That's what people will want to know. STATHAM: Even if there's beef in the product, then provided that beef has been produced as we… I mean I don’t know where your… you got these products from, but as far as the ones that we sampled were concerned, and the ones that we've been looking at, the beef hydrolysed protein was produced in the European community under all the controls that relate to beef production in the European community and that is as safe as beef will ever be. POWYS: Back in Germany and Prowico's boss was about to show us the beef and more. A warehouse full of animal leftovers, a husky material made from cows, pigs, chickens, the base for the water binding powder. It wont all go into chicken, but it will be gone soon. Secret filming HIETBRINK: When we are producing fully, it's away in three weeks. POWYS: So all this will be used in three weeks of production? MR HIETBRINK: When we are at full capacity, yes. Now I think 2 weeks then it's gone. POWYS: There was nothing to say where it came from, just the letter 'B' on this pile, the word 'cattle' in German and Mr Hietbrink's assurance that the beef is from BSE-free Brazil and made only from cow hides. Do you check your beef products for BSE? MR HIETBRINK: No – we have BSE guarantee because we sell beef products we are importing from Brazil. POWYS: All your beef products? MR HIETBRINK: Yeah – and in Brazil there is no BSE, not at all. But the skin of beef is generally without risk. It's officially recognised by every veterinarian and food technologist. POWYS: Prowico is an EU approved plant, but it's a company with a secret, a secret process which made them reluctant to show us too much. We just want to see the end products, or just to see… MR HIETBRINK: Yeah, yeah. That's no problem. POWYS: But the processing itself, you're not prepared to show anybody? MR HIETBRINK: (shaking his head) We won't show anybody. No, no. No objections to go into the store, that's alright, the laboratory facilities, not any problem. But we think we have some special techniques… POWYS: That you want to keep top secret. MR HIETBRINK: Yeah. POWYS: But top secret or not, eventually they gave in. They'd allow us to take a peek at one part of the processing plant. Is this where all your proteins are made? It's in this room? MR HIETBRINK: It's in this and the next one. POWYS: In the next one where we're not really allowed to look. The equipment that's just behind this dividing wall is off limits. Theo Hietbrink wants to keep Prowico's special techniques hidden from view, and he wants us to get a move on. MR HIETBRINK: I've already showed you too much. POWYS' COLLEAGUE: I know, I could tell you're getting nervous. POWYS: And then all becomes clear. Theo Hietbrink makes a remarkable claim. Prowico has developed a new protein product. No one will ask questions about the beef in future because they wont know it's there. It's undetectable. Secret filming MR HIETBRINK: We have what we call PCR-negative proteins. POWYS: This is what we were interested in. MR HIETBRINK: In which no animal species are detectable. POWYS' COLLEAGUE: But that's… this is a new product? MR HIETBRINK: Relatively new. No, no, it's not a product as such, it's already, but we… That is what I meant with our special techniques, we can take off the DNA. POWYS: The science is complicated but the offer is clear enough. He has just claimed he can remove the DNA code from the product we want. It means tampering with what is known as base pairs to create an untraceable protein. As buyers, we'll know what it's made of, so will he, but the authorities and the consumer will not. The scientific test for DNA is called PCR. Prowico's PCR- negative protein wouldn't show up. It's our call. Secret filming So it's up to us whether we use that or not. HIETBRINK: That's your decision, not mine of course. POWYS: So explain to me how the PCR-negative protein works, how you get out of DNA. HIETBRINK: By special technique and that's what I do not want to talk about. POWYS' COLLEAGUE: No, of course – it's your own. POWYS: This is Prowico's state secret! HIETBRINK: The only thing I would say is that if you're able to bring the situation in such a point that you have only one base pair of DNA you never can recombine it again. That's the only thing I want to say about the subject. POWYS: So when the FSA, or whoever in the UK tests it..? HIETBRINK: Negative. POWYS' COLLEAGUE: That's what our clients have said. HIETBRINK: Yes, and we guarantee that. POWYS: Obviously, that's what he wants. Yes. It must be a very popular product. HIETBRINK: But we do not guarantee it's poultry. Remember, we were posing as poultry processors. What they offered to sell us was a protein that is guaranteed to beat your tests. This is an EU approved factory. What do you make of that? STATHAM: Well firstly I think they're being very brave in the suggestion that they can guarantee to beat the tests because we certainly don’t have any evidence, nor do the Irish, that the sensitivity of this test would be such that it would be beaten, and again clearly if a company is behaving in a way that is designed to try and mislead and take.. and confuse in that way, then we would be very concerned about it. We'd be extremely concerned that they take this cavalier attitude. POWYS: The concern in Prowico is to prove the new additive isn't just untraceable but cheap too. The boss does tell us: "we should really use poultry proteins in chicken, but the new product is cheaper." Secret filming POWYS: And just to put our minds at rest, we would not be the only people using this product, by any means? HIETBRINK: No, no, no, by any means. POWYS: Give me a ballpark figure. Are we talking one or two companies or are we talking…. HIETBRINK: No, no! At least twelve. At least twelve. And not only chicken. POWYS' COLLEAGUE: There's beef in other things? HIETBRINK: There are people who are using beef protein but PCR-negative, in hams, for example. POWYS: So disguised. HIETBRINK: Yeah. POWYS: Would you be concerned enough to ensure that the product, if it's in this country, is taken off the shelf until you've properly investigated? STATHAM: Well, again, we did ask you to provide us with evidence, if you had got something. You haven't provided it before, so I can't comment on that. POWYS: But I've told you very fully, they guaranteed it would beat your tests. They said they could take off the DNA. What do you make of that? STATHAM: Well, they may have told you they can do that. POWYS: They'd not only told us, they'd shown us a lab report proving that no pork or DNA had been found in the new additive. A few weeks later, they'd even faxed Pan Euro a copy of the report for our peace of mind. Sample Test Cattle: Negative Pig : Negative POWYS: So had they cracked the science? A DNA strand is made from hundreds of thousands of base pairs. If the DNA can be degraded so much there's just one pair left, you're stumped. It's the sequence that tells you which animal it's from. That's what they claim they've done. HIETBRINK: If you are able to bring the situation that only one base pair of DNA, you never can recombine it again. POWYS: We asked leading food research scientist Dr Brian Hanley if Prowico were bluffing, or was this special process feasible? He talks about a base pair of DNA, of not being able to recombine it. What's that about? Dr BRYAN HANLEY Leatherhead Food International If it is that it's a single base pair that's there, then yes, that's correct, you wont be able to recombine it. It's a bit like going into a street and looking at a whole row of houses. You may remember from having seen them before that the house with the red door follows the house with the yellow door, and the house with the green door, etc. And you may, therefore, be able to recognise the street. If all you see is a single house with a red door, then you wont be able to tell whether it's that street or maybe some other street. So getting down to a single base pair like that means that you will not be able to detect the product. POWYS: So the regulators' tests could be beaten. Back in Amsterdam and Niko had already agreed to work another shift at Lelie, one of Holland's largest poultry processors. We'd asked him to look out for clues what exactly Lelie put in their chicken. Okay, it's ten past five. What time does your shift start? NIKO: It's 5.45 I have to be in the factory. POWYS: Okay, so you've got a little bit of time. This is the container. It's sterile so you just need to open it, scoop some of the liquid. Niko had seen the Lelie additive storeroom, he just wasn't sure he'd be able to get to it. [to Niko, as he sets off] Good luck. He thought the managers had been keeping an eye on him. He also warned us his job was in another part of the factory, packing and stacking boxes. Today he'd been told to put bags of frozen chicken from Brazil into defrosting racks ready to be injected and refrozen for export. But we were in luck. He managed to leave his post long enough to spot sacks of additive. These were in the room next to the injection machines. Even luckier, one had split open. Niko had his sample. Beef and pork DNA has turned up in Lelie chicken more than once. Now they say they're confident their chicken has no foreign DNA in it. NIKO: I did get a sample in the storeroom of this white powder and it came out of a bag. The bag just had 'Surplus' on it and the name of the company and in Dutch ?? or usage known, so the user will know how to use it, that's all. POWYS: So it sounds as though it's to their specification then. NIKO: Yeah, and there was a serial number on it. POWYS: So that name again, Surplus, Wil de Kuster's company. What's more, the serial number on the powder Niko had found, 801C was familiar. It was on the lab report Wil de Kuster had faxed us as proof the authorities wouldn't find beef or pork DNA in the new PCR-negative protein. HIETBRINK: Negative… negative.. and we guarantee it. POWYS: So what, if anything, would the Public Analyst Laboratory in Manchester find? Dr ANDREW SMITH Public Analyst, Casella GMSS We found some DNA but we were unable to show that it contained beef, pork, chicken or any other animal frankly. We just couldn't work with it. There just wasn't enough amplifiable DNA there to prove anything frankly. POWYS: So if we were to tell you that that was the idea of this powder, that it was designed to fail your tests, would that tally with what you found? SMITH: Certainly, yes, we didn't find anything so if it's been treated in some way so that the DNA test doesn't work, then that's entirely consistent with what we found. POWYS: Dublin could find no trace of beef or pork either. They did find some chicken DNA, but remember, Niko had been handling chicken all morning and there could have been traces of chicken on the storeroom floor. T. Lelie have since told us they don’t use 801C anymore but that the supplier had guaranteed it contained only pure chicken protein. They deny they put beef or pork proteins in their chicken and say their own tests support this. Both Prowico and Surplus told Panorama that they have never sold proteins or additives without declaring their true contents. They insist that poultry products they sell are of pure poultry origin. But remember this…? HIETBRINK: We do not guarantee it's poultry. POWYS: Both firms say it's not up to them how the product is eventually labelled. That is up to the processor. Remember this? HIETBRINK: … beef protein but PCR-negative in hams, for example. POWYS: They point out that all the raw materials, products and production processes they use are certified as safe, and closely monitored by European authorities. We've had food safety experts asking why is it that it's up to journalists to find this out and not the Food Standards Agency. Surely it's your job. DAVID STATHAM Director of Enforcement & Standards Certainly it is something that the Food Standards Agency, if it were brought to our attention, would investigate. But we can't possibly be expected to… I can't personally can't possibly be expected to know every product that's on sale in every food manufacturer in the whole of the European economic community. I… er… particularly if that producer, as you've described, is an unscrupulous and illegal producer. POWYS: He's not doing anything illegal, as he points out all the time. STATHAM: He may say that but I totally disagree. POWYS: How are you going to stop him? You're not even going to know it's in the product. STATHAM: You, apparently, have the information. If you bring it to our attention we will investigate. POWYS: We've had the powder tested. The lab failed to find anything in it. (Sorry, we've run out of tape) POWYS: Before we could ask anymore, and while the tape was being changed, the interview was suddenly cut short. A fortnight later the Food Standards Agency agreed to finish it, having had time to reflect. What would the response now be? STATHAM: We can guarantee that we have tackled this problem and tackled it effectively. We can guarantee that we were the first agency even to find that this was a problem. We can guarantee that we've got European backing for tackling this problem Europe wide. We can guarantee that the European Commission, even as we speak, is producing new legislation to tackle this issue. We can guarantee that we were the first country to prosecute anybody for this type of process and we will continue to take action until the product has been dealt with properly and effectively and efficiently. POWYS: You knew nothing about this, did you, until we told you a few weeks ago. STATHAM: We… you have brought… ah.. some things to our attention. We hope that you will provide evidence that you have gathered that we will then be able to investigate. Obviously we haven't seen any of this evidence. Once we've got it, we'll investigate and we'll use all the powers that we have to tackle the problem. POWYS: Panorama will be handing all our evidence of fraud and mislabelling to the FSA. Chicken, more than ever, is the food of choice for our children. Last year in the UK we ate over a million tons of it. But none of us knows how much frozen Dutch chicken contains additives from other animals, and if some processors have found ways of making them untraceable, we may never know what we're eating. ACTOR'S VOICE: This makes a joke of traceability. How can the FSA ever guarantee food safety when they won't be sure what's in it? How will any of us know what we're eating? Professor TIM LANG City University, London We've got to sort out issues like this. We've got to make clear that science is working for us, not for the adulterators, not for the fraudsters, not for the people who want to just make a little bit of profit out of our desire and our biological need to eat. This is very important. CREDITS Reporter Betsan Powys Film Camera Joe Taylor Stephen Foote Chris Sugden-Smith Allan Harraden Sound Recordists Jeff John Tony Pasefield Paul Lord VT Editor Richard Craddick Dubbing Mixer Rowen Jennings Production Co-odinator Emma Hill Post Production Co-ordinator Ginny Williams Web Producer Adam Flinter Film Research Kate Redman Original Research Felicity Lawrence Research Marco Kamphuis Graphic Design Julie Tritton Key Yip Lam Hamilton Ice Sculptors Production Manager Production Manager Helen Cooper Unit Manager Laura Govett Film Editors Andy Kemp David Howell Associate Producer Matthew Mervyn-Jones Producer Howard Bradburn Deputy Editors Andrew Bell Sam Collyns Editor Mike Robinson