Adulterated food products cause a scandal in Türkiye

A major food scandal has bubbled up in Türkiye after the government revealed that pork and horsemeat had been found in products labelled as containing beef and chicken, along with other issues.

A public outcry erupted after a Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) update revealed the mislabelling – along with a host of other problems including olive oil adulterated with other oils or prohibited dyes, cheese laced with margarine and antibiotic residues in milk – in a recently-published database that is updated on an almost daily basis with new cases.

Pork can be sold in Türkiye but has to be strictly labelled, as the country is predominantly Muslim and many people ascribe to the view that pig flesh is unclean and should not be eaten.

Among the recent entries in a list entitled 'foods that can endanger health' were pork in meatball (köfte) ready meals on sale in Yenişehir in Bursa and various cases involving restaurants in Antalya and Aydın provinces.

A separate database of imitation or adulterated foods includes dozens of incidents involving olive oil products, mostly adulteration with vegetable oils but also cases involving counterfeit honey, chicken sausage contaminated with offal (heart), and adulteration of herbs with 'foreign matter'.

It is a devastating finding for a country and population that derives no small amount of national pride and cultural identity from its culinary traditions and the quality of its produce. The rise in cases has been attributed in the local media to the high rate of inflation in Türkiye which has caused a cost-of-living crisis and pressure on producers to cut costs.

Photo by Pascal Debrunner on Unsplash