Criticism of Tesco firms, including Tesco and Asda, said they shared shoppers' "anger and outrage". Whitbread vowed to remedy the unacceptable situation on 26 February . The Food Standards Agency's (FSA) chief executive, Catherine Brown also said "it is unlikely we will ever know" how many unwittingly ate horse meat. On 22 May 2007 the BBC's "Whistleblower" programme showed undercover footage detailing breaches of food hygiene rules in a branch of Tesco. The Whistleblower reporter applied for a job following a tip-off from a former employee. Breaches included the sale of products after their sell-by date; allegations that the company illegally and sold
Criticism of Tesco the SFO, who took matter out of the hands of the Financial Conduct Authority, the City's business regulator. The UK accountancy regulator, the Financial Reporting Council, is also reported to be monitoring Tesco. Tesco's auditor PwC declined to comment. It found that they were overstated by £118m in the first half of this year, by £70m in the 2013-2014 financial year and by £75m before that. Warwick Business School's Prof Crawford Spence said: "Now that Tesco are being investigated for fraud by the SFO, the Financial Reporting Council have yet greater reason to start an investigation into the auditors' role