Comigel S.A.S. is a

privately owned A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is ...

French food processing company, headquartered in

Metz Metz ( , , lat, Divodurum Mediomatricorum, then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers. Metz is the prefecture of the Moselle department and the seat of the parliament of the Grand ...

History

Founded in 1972 in

Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...

, it moved its headquarters to Metz in 1976. The company was owned by Perkins Foods Holdings Ltd of the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

from 1991, and then purchased by French-based

private equity In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a t ...

firm Céréa Capital and for a minority share by Unigrains in 2007. The leading directors of Comigel are Antoine Sage, Erick Lehagre, Gilles Sicard, Antoine Peyronnet and Michel Chabanel of Céréa Capital. The private venture capital was invested by another private equity house Unigrains in 2010, who specialise in acquiring agricultural and food businesses across Europe. Unigrains claim to have an investment experience and partnership of 50 years in more than 200 French agri-businesses. Unigrains is also the owner of Ekkia, a horse trading company. Unigrains is also an investor in Labeyrie Fine Foods (a Lur Berri company and owners of Spanghero). The directors of Unigrains are Jean-François Laurain, (DG d’Unigrains), Michel Chabanel, (président de Céréa Gestion, Didier Bosc, (directeur des investissements et du développement d’Unigrains), Gilles Sicard : (DG de Céréa Capital), Antoine Peyronnet, Antoine Sage, (directeurs Céréa Capital), Fabrice Vidal, (DG de Céréa Mezzanine). After the purchase of Atlantique Alimentaire in 2010, employing 240 and based in

La Rochelle La Rochelle (, , ; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''La Rochéle''; oc, La Rochèla ) is a city on the west coast of France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department. Wi ...

, group turnover reached 100 million

euro The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...

s, on production of 30,000

ton Ton is the name of any one of several units of measure. It has a long history and has acquired several meanings and uses. Mainly it describes units of weight. Confusion can arise because ''ton'' can mean * the long ton, which is 2,240 pounds ...

s of food.

Operations

Comigel produces mainly frozen

convenience food Convenience food, also called tertiary processed food, is food that is commercially prepared (often through processing) to optimise ease of consumption. Such food is usually ready to eat without further preparation. It may also be easily p ...

for the European market, and is a provider of

white-label product A white-label product is a product or service produced by one company (the producer) that other companies (the marketers) rebrand to make it appear as if they had made it. The name derives from the image of a white label on the packaging that c ...

s for different food and retailers' brands of frozen fast food and desserts. At the Tavola factory in

Capellen Capellen ( lb, Cap/Capellen ) is a town in the commune of Mamer, in south-western Luxembourg, 12 km west of Luxembourg City. , the town has a population of 1,336. Despite not having a commune named after it, Capellen lends its name to the ...

, Luxembourg, 200 employees produce 16,000 tonnes annually of frozen ready-meals. These are then sold to retailers including Auchan and Cora in France, while a third are exported to customers including

Findus Findus () is a frozen food brand which was first sold in Sweden in 1945. Findus products include ready meals, peas and Crispy Pancakes, the latter of which were invented in the early 1970s. The Swiss food company Nestlé owned the Findus brand ...

, and

Tesco Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. In 2011 it was the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues and the ninth-largest in th ...

in the UK. One quarter of the factory's output goes to restaurants in schools, colleges, hospitals, retirement homes, company canteens and public service restaurants.

Horse meat contamination

In February 2013, it was reported that a

lasagne Lasagna (, also , also known as lasagne, ) is a type of pasta, possibly one of the oldest types, made of very wide, flat sheets. Either term can also refer to an Italian dish made of stacked layers of lasagna alternating with fillings such as ...

product that Comigel produces in Luxembourg on behalf of

and

Aldi Aldi (stylised as ALDI) is the common company brand name of two German multinational family-owned discount supermarket chains operating over 10,000 stores in 20 countries. The chain was founded by brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht in 1946, when ...

for

distribution Distribution may refer to: Mathematics *Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations * Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a vari ...

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It i ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

and Sweden, was found to contain up to 100%

horse meat Horse meat forms a significant part of the culinary traditions of many countries, particularly in Eurasia. The eight countries that consume the most horse meat consume about 4.3 million horses a year. For the majority of humanity's early existen ...

instead of the 100%

beef Beef is the culinary name for meat from cattle (''Bos taurus''). In prehistoric times, humankind hunted aurochs and later domesticated them. Since that time, numerous breeds of cattle have been bred specifically for the quality or quantit ...

as declared in the list of ingredients, in 11 out of 18 samples in a

Food Standards Agency , type = Non-ministerial government department , nativename = , nativename_a = , nativename_r = , logo = Food Standards Agency.svg , logo_width = , logo_caption = , seal = , seal_width = , seal_caption = , picture = , picture_width = ...

check. Comigel claimed that the meat supplier was Spanghero, a firm owned by Lur Berri. Findus announced that they will accept no more meat from Comigel, and stopped further deliveries of the product in question . On 8 February 2013, Findus Sweden announced a recall of its 375g packs of ready-made lasagne (code 63957) and published a contact number for customers who wanted to return the products they had already purchased. Supermarket chain

announced on 8 February 2013 that it would be withdrawing Today's Special Frozen Beef Lasagne and Today's Special Frozen Spaghetti Bolognese, products both sourced and supplied from Comigel, after tests found the meat content to contain between 30% and 100% horse meat. The BBC reported, on 11 February 2013, that supermarket chain

had discovered the meat in some of its Everyday Value Spaghetti Bolognese was 60% horsemeat. British Environment Secretary Owen Paterson told the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

that it appeared that '"criminal activity" had been at the heart of the scandal. On 14 February 2013, Dutch media reported that the frozen lasagne sold by the Dutch supermarket Albert Heijn under the Euroshopper brand, also originated from Comigel, via a subsidiary known as Tavola. The Primafrost Lasagne sold by Coop, Plus, Boni and Nettorama supermarkets in the Netherlands, also turned out to be supplied by Comigel. French government members Stéphane Le Foll "Ministre de l'Agriculture" and

Benoît Hamon Benoît Hamon (; born 26 June 1967) is a French politician known for his former role within the Socialist Party (PS) and Party of European Socialists (PES) and his political party Génération.s. Hamon joined the Socialist Party in 1988 and ...

"Ministre de la Consommation" concluded on 14 February 2013 that during further criminal investigations the meat processor Spanghero will have its licence suspended.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.comigel.com/ Food manufacturers of France Convenience food companies Companies based in Metz Food and drink companies established in 1972 Privately held companies of France 1972 establishments in France