An investigation was under way last night after claims that poultry meat was exported from the Suffolk farm at the centre of the bird flu outbreak after the disease was identified.

Despite the imposition of quarantine rules, six trucks of poultry products from the farm owned by Bernard Matthews were said to have arrived in Hungary on Thursday.

The Department for Enviornment, Food and Rural Affairs launched an investigation into the claims made last night by Lajos Bognar, Hungary’s Deputy Chief Vet.

The movement of meat from a site infected with the deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu was said by a Defra spokeswoman to be within the rules, but caused astonishment among opposition groups.

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The Bernard Matthews operation is a complex one. He sends hatching eggs to Hungary where the chicks are fattened up on farms

Valerie Elliott

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BACKGROUND

• A virulent strain of self-loathing taking hold

• Focus: It's not so Bootiful

• Bird flu doctors could be given military guards

• If bird flu grips the nation, doctors will need guns

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• Q&A: Hungary and the UK bird flu outbreak

• Scandal over ‘bird flu’ imports

• Focus: It's not so Bootiful

David Miliband, Secretary of State for the Environment, has already been forced to defend Defra’s handling of the outbreak and will come under pressure to explain the latest revelation today. Peter Ainsworth, the Shadow Environment Secretary, said: “I’m increasingly bemused at the unfolding saga and finding it increasingly difficult to understand what’s going on.

“It’s exactly how you turn a drama into a crisis. I can’t think of anything more calculated to damage public confidence.”

Strict rules came into force ten days ago at the farm and meat processing site in Holton to ensure that the virus was contained, but a loophole in the regulations allows limited exemptions. Live birds, eggs and carcasses cannot be moved from infected sites, but processed meat in storage is exempt from the isolation rules.

Among the possibilities being examined by Defra is the suggestion that exported poultry products may have originally come from Hungary and been stored in a refrigeration unit in the same meat processing building that the infected turkeys were taken to in order to be gassed, before being returned to the Continent.

Dr Bognar told Channel 4: “I can say that, from the protection zone from the UK, six trucks arrived from the last week to Hungary.”

Tests are now being carried out in Hungary to assess the safety of the poultry consignments and results are expected today. Dr Bognar said that Hungarian and British vets will meet tomorrow to discuss their findings. However, he said that he believed it unlikely that the infection in Hungary had led to the British outbreak.

All movements of poultry products for export from the farm site had been completed by Thursday, when scientists linked the outbreak to avian flu in geese in Hungary and the firm announced that it was stopping imports from the country.

A spokesman for Bernard Matthews would only say: “Bernard Matthews can confirm that it imports meat from Hungary and exports it to Hungary as well. All these imports and exports are regulated and Bernard Matthews adheres strictly to all the regulations.”

A Defra spokeswoman said: “Depending on the type of product and the date of slaughter and which farm it originated from, it is possible that poultry products from the Suffolk plant could have met the requirement for movement outside the restricted area.”

Mr Miliband was forced to defend the decision to allow Bernard Matthews to continue importing meat from Hungary. The firm maintained last week that there could be no link between the outbreaks because none of its farms or factories was closer than 110 miles to the Hungarian farms where avian flu was found. But it emerged yesterday that last Tuesday the firm imported 20 tons of bird meat from an abattoir 30 miles from the Hungarian outbreak.

Government inspectors knew of the intention to bring the products to Britain and took no action to stop it. The abattoir was outside the Hungarian exclusion zone and the import was legal. Mr Miliband said that to have banned meat imports from Hungary would have contravened trade rules.

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