Burger King in the U.K. announced Thursday it has stopped using meat from a distributer caught supplying British grocers with hamburger that contained horse meat.
The chain said it would no longer use products from ABP Food Group's Irish subsidiary, Silvercrest, to supply its locations in Britain and Ireland. This past weekend, the fast food giant replaced all Silvercrest meat with deliveries from another supplier as a "voluntary and precautionary measure," it said in a statement.
The scandal has left Ireland's 2 billion euros ($2.6 billion) beef industry, which accounts for 21 percent of all of the country's food and drink exports, reeling from the first major knock-on effect from the discovery, according to Reuters.
"This is a voluntary and precautionary measure," Burger King said. "We are working diligently to identify suppliers that can produce 100 percent pure Irish and British beef products that meet our high quality standards."
Meanwhile, food safety experts say horse meat poses no added health risks to consumers, but the discovery is disconcerting and left consumers wary of what is really in their hamburgers.
Last week U.K.-based Tesco, one of the world's largest food retailers and known in the U.S. under its Fresh & Easy brand, apologized for the horse meat-laden burger and pulled store brand burgers from groceries in Britain and Ireland.
Silvercrest also apologized in a statement for "the understandable concern this issue has caused."
