Bungle hits tainted-beef probe

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A South Korean bungle over tainted New Zealand beef exports has wasted food-safety investigators' time.

The mistake has delayed efforts to pinpoint the source of pesticide contamination threatening beef exports to South Korea.

Meat tainted with endosulfan last week prompted an urgent investigation by the New Zealand Food Safety Authority (NZFSA) after a complaint from its South Korean counterpart.

Authority chief executive Andrew McKenzie said investigators thought they were closing in on the source of the toxic pesticide understood to be a Waikato farm when the Koreans admitted their mistake.

He said South Korea's National Veterinary Research and Quarantine Service had given New Zealand investigators details of the wrong meat shipment a blunder that was uncovered on Wednesday.

"They gave us details of the contaminated carton and we were chasing up and got down to five farms and doing all the interviewing," McKenzie said. "We thought we had one that was potentially a good lead and that all came back negative.

"Then we got notified that it wasn't that carton, it was another one, another series of cartons, so we've had to go back to square one. We've basically wasted five or six days."

- © Fairfax NZ News