Horsemeat scandal: Germany pulls lasagne off shelves

Horsemeat has been detected in frozen lasagne on sale in Germany and supermarkets have started removing the product from their shelves.

The Real supermarket chain said it had withdrawn TiP frozen lasagne - the latest tainted processed food to figure in a Europe-wide scandal.

Other German retailers including Tengelmann and Rewe are now checking their processed beef products too.

The EU is urging member states to conduct random tests for horsemeat.

All members should carry out DNA tests on processed beef for traces of horsemeat for three months from 1 March, the EU health commissioner said on Wednesday.

German authorities suspect a batch of lasagne sent from Luxembourg to a retailer in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

On Wednesday the state's Consumer Affairs Minister, Johannes Remmel, said that "after analysing the data we have learned that through a middleman in Luxembourg, a significant amount of goods has been shipped to Germany and North Rhine-Westphalia, and those goods are suspected, and I repeat only suspected, to have not been properly labelled".

The shipment is believed to have taken place between November 2012 and January 2013.