In January 2013, DNA tests by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland found horse DNA in 10 of 27 beef burger products and pig DNA in 23. One budget burger was nearly 30% horse. The testing that followed found that many Findus lasagna samples were largely or entirely horse meat, setting off recalls across Europe.

This episode follows the meat from legally labeled Romanian abattoirs through a Cyprus-registered trader run from the Netherlands, a French processor, and a Luxembourg factory. We look at the phenylbutazone scare, the religious breach caused by undeclared pork, the collapse in sales, and the EU testing, Europol investigations, and arrests that followed.

• How cheap PCR DNA testing exposed a supply chain that ran on paperwork and trust
• Why the trading company Draap was named for the Dutch word for horse spelled backward
• How forged horse passports allowed animals treated with bute into the food chain
• Why officials said the bute risk to consumers was tiny, and why public anger kept growing anyway
• How the scandal led to mass DNA testing across the EU and the UK’s National Food Crime Unit