2013 horse meat scandal situation. The Food Standards Agency's (FSA) chief executive, Catherine Brown also said "it is unlikely we will ever know" how many unwittingly ate horsemeat. Tesco's market value dropped by . European Union officials, European ministers and Commissioner (Tonio) Borg set up an urgent meeting in Brussels on 13 February 2013 on how to contain the horse meat scandal that exposed flaws in European control systems on food safety, and to formulate an action plan. Following the meeting, EU agriculture ministers announced a three-month programme of DNA testing of processed meat across the European Union. The plan calls for 2,500 random
Criticism of Tesco but Tesco backed down. Tesco has been subject to several claims of apparently out-of-date food being 'back-labelled' to appear still to be within date, poor café hygiene and a staff member contracting legionnaires' disease in the Wrexham store. Tesco denied squeezing its suppliers in December 2013 after retail analyst Cantor Fitzgerald accused Tesco of practices that risked breaching the Groceries Supply Code of Practice and criticized its trading relationships. Similar accusation were also made in April 2005 despite its record £2 billion profit. In May 2004, Tesco announced it was reducing sick pay in an attempt to reduce levels of