導(dǎo)讀：馬肉也是肉，意大利美食家對(duì)馬肉火腿情有獨(dú)鐘，但如果原材料標(biāo)簽上明目張膽寫道“牛肉”，事情就變得復(fù)雜了。

Food safety

食品安全

After the horse has been bolted

掛牛頭賣馬肉

Horse meat in the food chain is a wake-up call, not a calamity

“馬肉風(fēng)波”算不上是災(zāi)難性的事件，而是給食品鏈敲響一次警鐘。

Feb 16th 2013|From the print edition

Do I look like a cow?

您看我哪像牛了？

TITUS ANDRONICUS avenged himself on the barbarian queen Tamora by murdering her sons and serving them up to her in a pie. European food manufacturers did nothing so dreadful when they sold horse as beef in burgers and lasagne.

泰特斯·安德洛克尼斯為報(bào)一己之仇，殺死了野蠻女王塔摩拉的兒子，并騙她吃了用其子做的人肉餡餅。歐洲食品商只是以馬肉冒充牛肉添加到漢堡或者冷凍面中，并沒有做出任何像泰特斯那樣卑劣的事情。

Horsemeat is not dangerous. Italian gourmets adore thin slices of prosciutto di cavallo. The Chinese chomp half a million tonnes of horseflesh a year. But if a product says “beef” on the label, it should be that.

馬肉也是肉。意大利美食家對(duì)馬肉火腿情有獨(dú)鐘，中國(guó)餐桌上每年要吃下50萬(wàn)噸馬肉。但是如果原材料標(biāo)簽上明目張膽寫道“牛肉”，事情就變得復(fù)雜了。

Some big names are now deeply embarrassed. Tesco, a British supermarket, Aldi, a German discounter, and Findus, a frozen-food manufacturer, all inadvertently sold the fraudulent flesh. It may have reached more than a dozen countries.

許多響當(dāng)當(dāng)?shù)钠放迫缃裣萑脒M(jìn)退兩難的困境：英國(guó)超市特易購(gòu)Tesco，德國(guó)折扣店阿爾迪Aldi，還有冷凍食品制造商芬達(dá)斯Findus都不經(jīng)意間卷入“馬肉風(fēng)波”的欺詐案中?！榜R肉風(fēng)波”估計(jì)影響了十幾個(gè)國(guó)家。

Sellers withdrew the offending products and grovelled. Politicians fulminated. More test results are expected soon. (Update: On February 14th Britain's Food Standards Agency said that eight horses slaughtered in the country tested positive for the painkiller bute and six of them may have entered the food chain in France.)

賣家召回存在質(zhì)量問題的生肉并且表示歉意。政客們則在一旁破口大罵。更詳細(xì)的檢驗(yàn)結(jié)果很快就會(huì)公布。（實(shí)時(shí)數(shù)據(jù)：2月14日，英國(guó)食品標(biāo)準(zhǔn)局表示法國(guó)一家屠宰場(chǎng)受檢的八只牛體內(nèi)馬用止痛藥呈陽(yáng)性，其中六只已流入其市場(chǎng)。）

That horses have strayed into the food chain does not show that the fencing has collapsed. Food is vastly safer than it was a century ago, when food poisoning was a statistically significant cause of death (see chart). Rules tighten with each scare.

馬肉溜入市場(chǎng)并不代表食品檢測(cè)線崩潰?，F(xiàn)在的食品要比一個(gè)世紀(jì)前安全一百倍，統(tǒng)計(jì)顯示當(dāng)時(shí)食物中毒是導(dǎo)致人類死亡的主要原因。每一次驚恐過(guò)后，法規(guī)條款就會(huì)更加明細(xì)。

After a deadly outbreak of a human version of mad-cow disease, caught from eating British beef in the 1990s, farmers had to give cows passports showing where they came from and where they had been. (Horses have passports, too, though the scheme is somewhat laxer.)

20世紀(jì)90年代食用牛肉造成瘋牛病在人類中間流竄開并且引發(fā)災(zāi)難性后果，自此之后農(nóng)場(chǎng)主就必須給每頭牛貼上標(biāo)簽，標(biāo)明這頭牛的詳細(xì)出身。（當(dāng)然馬也有如此標(biāo)簽，盡管不像牛肉那樣嚴(yán)格）

Big retailers and producers have brands to protect, so they are vigilant. When fraudsters are found to have diluted a pricey fruit juice with a cheaper one, or switched Basmati for ordinary rice, it is sometimes because a supermarket has spotted something wrong.

大型零售商和生產(chǎn)商要保護(hù)自己的品牌形象，所以他們時(shí)刻會(huì)保持警惕性。詐騙犯稀釋昂貴果汁以次充好或者用普通大米代替巴斯馬蒂香稻，有時(shí)發(fā)現(xiàn)這種情況是因?yàn)槌胁煊X道哪里出了問題。

An audit by Tesco of its suppliers “is one of the most feared and respected things in the industry,” says Michael Walker, a food-safety consultant. “How come it didn’t pick this up?”

“特易購(gòu)對(duì)其供應(yīng)商的審計(jì)流程算得上是業(yè)內(nèi)令人尊敬又畏懼的事情，”食品安全顧問邁克爾·沃克說(shuō)。“但是這次怎么就沒及時(shí)發(fā)現(xiàn)呢？”

Tesco’s answer is that in one case its supplier of frozen burgers disregarded a list of approved suppliers and its stipulation that the meat come from Britain or Ireland. But such mishaps have deeper causes.

特易購(gòu)針對(duì)其中一個(gè)案例給出的答案是：冷凍漢堡的供應(yīng)商無(wú)視名單上合格的次級(jí)供應(yīng)商，而且特特易購(gòu)明文規(guī)定肉源必須是英國(guó)或者愛爾蘭。不過(guò)，發(fā)生這樣的事故，原因遠(yuǎn)不止如此簡(jiǎn)單。

Though prices of raw materials are going up, penny-pinching consumers refuse to pay more for ready-meals. Retailers, equally unwilling to forgo profits, are putting relentless pressure on suppliers to cut costs.

盡管原材料價(jià)格不斷上漲，但是錙銖必較的顧客仍不愿去買半成品或成品。零售商同樣不愿放棄掙錢的機(jī)會(huì)，一直壓榨供應(yīng)商以降低成本價(jià)格。

They in turn are frantically rejigging foodstuffs to be cheaper. “De-sinewed meat” (scraps mechanically separated from the carcass) seemed a fitting ingredient for low-priced British hamburgers until last April. But then the European Commission banned most types of it. Patty makers may have looked abroad for an alternative.

反之，為降低售價(jià)供應(yīng)商瘋狂偷工減料。直到去年4月，“剔除了腱子的肥膘塊”（機(jī)器剝離后的邊角料）作為英國(guó)低價(jià)漢堡的原材料似乎再合適不過(guò)了。但是之后歐盟委員會(huì)取締了大多數(shù)類似的肉種。餡餅主估計(jì)又得去海外尋找機(jī)會(huì)了。

The mislabelled-mince saga reveals “just how convoluted” the supply chain can be, says Bryan Roberts of Kantar Retail, a consultancy. The ground-up horse that found its way into the own-label lasagne of Findus and Aldi was apparently slaughtered in Romania.

貼錯(cuò)標(biāo)簽的傳奇事跡揭示了“食品供應(yīng)鏈?zhǔn)窃鯓幼屓税l(fā)狂的”咨詢顧問公司Kantar Retail的布萊恩·羅伯茨說(shuō)。由羅馬尼亞加工碾碎的馬肉流入芬達(dá)斯和阿爾迪這樣擁有自主千層面品牌的公司。

Two intermediaries arranged its shipment to a French processor, Spanghero, which sent it to a factory in Luxembourg owned by Comigel, also French. “The more complex the food chain, the more difficult it is to control,” says Mark Woolfe, a former head of food authenticity at Britain’s Food Standards Agency.

隨后兩家公司安排送往法國(guó)一家加工公司，再流轉(zhuǎn)到同樣是法國(guó)一家公司Comigel在盧森堡建的加工廠。“食品鏈越是復(fù)雜，管理起來(lái)也越艱難?！瘪R克·沃爾菲說(shuō)，前英國(guó)食品安全標(biāo)準(zhǔn)局食品真?zhèn)舞b定中心主任。

This bedevils every industry with stretched-out supply lines. Walmart, an American retailing giant, had no idea that garment suppliers had subcontracted orders to a sweatshop in Bangladesh until it burned down, with consequences more awful than the queasiness felt by unwitting consumers of horsemeat.

每家擁有縱深供應(yīng)線的工廠都因此苦惱不已。美國(guó)零售巨頭沃爾瑪對(duì)于服裝供應(yīng)商將合同轉(zhuǎn)包于孟加拉一家工作條件差工資低廉的工廠也是一籌莫展，最終發(fā)現(xiàn)還是因?yàn)槊霞永S發(fā)火生災(zāi)，后果當(dāng)比不知情的消費(fèi)者最后發(fā)現(xiàn)是馬肉而惡心反胃嚴(yán)重得多。

A recent survey by PwC, a consultancy, found that retail and consumer-goods companies were less likely than other industries to see their supply chains as having “strategic” importance, treating them instead as ways to save money. The footloose relationships that food companies often have with suppliers can spring nasty surprises.

普華永道PwC顧問公司近期發(fā)表一篇調(diào)查研究報(bào)告，其中發(fā)現(xiàn)零售商和消費(fèi)品公司不像其他產(chǎn)業(yè)對(duì)于自己的供貨來(lái)源把關(guān)上有“戰(zhàn)略”層面的特殊意義，而是作為其削減成本的渠道之一。食品公司這種自由散漫的貿(mào)易關(guān)系最終結(jié)果只能是“有驚無(wú)喜”。

Even before the horsemeat hoo-ha, there were rumbles of change. A report by Rabobank, a Dutch bank, urges food companies to move away from fleeting relationships with independent-minded suppliers and towards “dedicated” supply chains based on long contracts and close collaboration. Walmart’s IPL and Tesco’s Group Food Sourcing, which bypass middlemen and buy directly from producers, may be steps in that direction.

即使在“馬肉風(fēng)波”之前，也不乏有一些變革出現(xiàn)。荷蘭合作銀行在報(bào)告中強(qiáng)烈要求食品公司終止與那些獨(dú)立操作的供應(yīng)商短期合作，而是轉(zhuǎn)向立足于長(zhǎng)期合同“精細(xì)的”供應(yīng)鏈繼而密切合作。沃爾瑪IPL和特易購(gòu)食品采購(gòu)部門撇開中間商直接和生產(chǎn)者建立買賣關(guān)系，這或許就是前進(jìn)的風(fēng)向標(biāo)。

Horses for courses

“馬”老師好！

Retailers say auditors cannot be expected to catch the sort of fraud that may have let horsemeat into the burger chain. The emphasis may well shift towards testing, both by agencies and by the industry.

零售商表示不應(yīng)該指望審計(jì)人員能夠跟的上類似馬肉流入漢堡加工鏈這樣的欺詐案腳步。重點(diǎn)應(yīng)該放在檢測(cè)上面，無(wú)論是當(dāng)局檢測(cè)還是工廠自己檢測(cè)。

Food is already checked for pesticides, microbes, heavy metals and drugs. One reason horseburgers were not caught earlier is that a panic about horsemeat in salami in 2003 turned out to be an expensive false alarm. Now testers will no doubt screen for the entire manifest of Noah’s ark.

食品已經(jīng)經(jīng)過(guò)農(nóng)藥、微生物、重金屬和藥物檢測(cè)流程。那為什么早先沒有檢測(cè)出馬肉成分？原因其中之一可能是因?yàn)?003年薩拉米馬肉恐慌事件到頭來(lái)只是拉響一次昂貴不堪的警報(bào)。如今檢測(cè)人員絕不會(huì)放過(guò)諾亞方舟上一絲一毫的疑點(diǎn)。

Mr Roberts hopes that retailers will ease up in their unyielding quest for lower costs. However, that would require shoppers, too, to care less about prices. Good luck with that.

羅伯特希望零售商不要再下放削減成本的死任務(wù)。同樣適用于普通店家，不要過(guò)分關(guān)心價(jià)格。希望今后以此為戒，“馬肉風(fēng)波”不再重演。

【日積月累】

chomp v.大聲地咀嚼

inadvertently adv.非故意地

fulminate v.怒斥

dilute v.削弱