Ten million beefburgers are being recalled in a British scandal over horse meat contamination, it emerged yesterday.

As revulsion over the issue grew, more supermarkets and fast food chain Burger King were drawn into the row.

Sainsbury's, Asda and the Co-op have decided to remove thousands of packs of frozen burgers as a precautionary measure.

The firms acted because the products were made by an Irish food giant which is known to have been supplying burgers contaminated with horse meat.

Separately, Burger King confirmed it gets burgers from the same company. However, it said there has been an 'absolute assurance' that these are not contaminated.

Food watchdogs in the UK and Ireland are racing to establish whether products made for other retailers, take-aways and restaurants are contaminated.

Last night the Government and the Food Standards Agency announced a UK wide survey into the authenticity of burgers and other processed meat products.

The revelations have been met with anger and disgust, while the companies involved face prosecutions for misleading shoppers.

Speaking at Prime Minister's Question Time, David Cameron, said: 'People in our country will have been very concerned to read this morning that when they thought they were buying beefburgers they were buying something with horse meat in it. This is a completely unacceptable state of affairs.'

He warned the stores involved, saying: 'Ultimately retailers have to be responsible for what it is they sell and where it comes from.'

The alert was first raised by Irish food watchdogs earlier this week after horse DNA was found in burgers sold through Tesco, Iceland, Aldi, Lidl and Dunnes in Ireland.

It subsequently emerged that burgers from the same batches were sold in the British outlets of both Tesco and Iceland. The beef content in one Everyday Value burger sold by Tesco was actually 29 percent horse meat.

The tests were carried out in November but the results were not released until they had been checked by experts in Germany. It is likely that many thousands of the burgers contaminated with horse meat have been eaten by families.

(Read by Brian Salter. Brian Salter is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

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(Agencies)