According to a media report, German manufacturers of poultry sausage are said to have used mechanically separated meat – i.e. comminuted slaughterhouse residues – in poultry sausage and other poultry meat products without labeling this as required.
Laboratory tests “provided evidence” for this, reported NDR and “Spiegel” on Thursday. The accused companies of the slaughter group Tönnies denied. They stated that they rejected the use of mechanically separated meat for qualitative reasons. They questioned the research method.
NDR and “Spiegel” had 30 poultry sausage and poultry meat samples from various manufacturers examined by Bremerhaven university professor Stefan Wittke. The media reported that he had developed a new method to detect MSM in sausage products. So far this has hardly been possible.
Mechanically separated meat is produced by machines pressing animal bodies or coarsely chopped bones with meat residue through perforated discs, as NDR and “Spiegel” report. Bone splinters and pieces of cartilage get caught, all soft parts such as muscles, fat and connective tissue or even the spinal cord are squeezed off. This creates a mushy mass that costs only cents per kilogram.
