IKEA U.S. Meatballs Do Not Contain Horse Meat

By Laine Doss Wed., Feb. 27 2013 at 2:26 PM

Categories: News, Restaurant News

IKEA US

It's OK to eat the meatballs.

If you're heading to IKEA in Sunrise to pick up some cheap furniture and a snack, don't worry too much about finding remnants of Trigger in your lunch.

Earlier in the week, authorities in the Czech Republic detected horse meat in IKEA meatballs. Initially, the furniture company removed meatballs from its stores in Sweden.

According to the New York Times, IKEA then expanded the recall to include its stores in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, France, Britain, Portugal, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Greece, Cyprus, and Ireland.

This is the latest finding of horse meat in European meat products.

Last month, Burger King products in the U.K. were found to contain horse meat, and a popular European brand of frozen meat lasagne was recalled because the "beef" used actually contained between "30% to 100%" horse meat, according to CNN.

The good news? None of the horse meat products have made their way to the United States -- so far.

In a statement issued by IKEA U.S., the furniture giant said:

"Customer confidence is of the upmost [sic] importance to IKEA. In light of the recent press on IKEA meatball content, we would like to correct some misinformation. All meatballs sold in our IKEA US stores are sourced from a US supplier. When this issue first came to light in Europe, we mapped the sources of the meat in our meatballs. Based on the results of our mapping, we can confirm that the contents of the meatballs follow the IKEA recipe and contain only beef and pork from animals raised in the US and Canada. All beef and pork from the US and Canada must comply with USDA guidelines."