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
Tesco by 10.1% to £3.4 billion. Tesco then planned to create 16,000 new jobs, 9,000 in the UK. In 2011 the retailer reported its poorest six-monthly UK sales figures for 20 years, attributed to consumers' reduced non-food spending and a growth in budget rivals. By 2014, Tesco appeared to have lost some of its appeal to customers. The share price lost 49 per cent of its value up to October as it struggled to fend off competition from rivals Aldi and Lidl. In October 2014, Tesco suspended 8 executives following its announcement the previous month that it had previously overstated its