Swedish furniture retailer IKEA, which runs restaurants in all of its stores, temporarily withdrew its famous meatballs from the restaurant in Bucharest, Romania, after horse meat was found in some of the food sold in the Czech Republic. In Romania, the measure was preventive and the meatballs were unavailable for only half an hour on Monday (February 25 ).

According to IKEA representatives, they checked the products as a precautionary measure: “The meatballs which tested positive for horse meat in the Czech republic were never sold in any IKEA restaurant, and neither in Romania. We decided to double check the meatballs in Romania, even if the products had already been checked by our Swedish colleagues and our supplier,” said Cornel Oprişan, retail manager of IKEA Romania.

IKEA restaurants all over the world get the meatballs produced in Sweden. In Romania, the retailer sold over 4 million meatballs between September 2011 and August 2012, the retailer's catalog year, making them one of the most popular foods at the IKEA restaurant.

The Czech State Veterinary Administration found horse meat in packs of frozen meatballs made in Sweden and shipped to the Czech Republic, and some 760 kilograms of meatballs were stopped from being sold.

IKEA spokeswoman Ylva Magnusson said meatballs from the same batch had gone out to Slovakia, Hungary, France, Britain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Ireland.

Romania was recently part of a horse meat scandal which then spread all over Europe. more about it here.

editor@romania-insider.com