The French firm that sparked a Europe-wide food scandal by allegedly passing off 750 tonnes of horsemeat as beef was allowed Monday to resume production of minced meat, sausages and ready-to-eat meals. But Spanghero, whose horsemeat found its way into 4.5 million "beef" products sold across Europe, will no longer be allowed to stock frozen meat, Agriculture Minister Stephane Le Foll told AFP. The firm's sanitary licence was suspended last Thursday after it was accused of passing off huge quantities of horsemeat as beef over a period of six months.

The European Union has agreed the immediate launch of tests for horse DNA in meat products, seeking to reassure nervous consumers that their food is safe and to end the horsemeat scandal spreading across Europe. The test programme will also look for the presence of phenylbutazone, an anti-inflammatory treatment for horses which is harmful to humans and by law supposed to be kept out of the food chain.

BELFAST, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Horse meat has been discovered in a batch of beef burgers supplied to hospitals in Northern Ireland, officials said on Friday. The supplier of the hospitals, Irish food firm Rangeland Foods, said the burgers used meat from Poland and some contained between 5 percent and 30 percent horse meat. Horse meat has been found in beef products across Europe in recent weeks, damaging confidence in the continent's vast and complex food industry.

Twenty-nine beef products out of 2,501 tested in Britain have been found to contain more than one percent horsemeat, the Food Standards Agency said on Friday. FSA chief executive Catherine Brown said: "The overwhelming majority of beef products in this country do not contain horse. The examples we have had are totally unacceptable, but they are the exceptions." All of the 29 products containing horsemeat have already been withdrawn from sale, she added.