I’m not sure untransparent is a word, but that’s the Dutch.

According to a new report in the Telegraaf, the Dutch safety institute is poised to publish a damning report about food safety in the meat industry.

The report by the Onderzoeksraad voor de Veiligheid says there are serious shortcomings in food industry supervision which pose a risk to food safety, the paper says.

In particular, the report is criticial of the lack of transparency in the meat trade. For example, a supermarket hamburger or meatball could have been handled by three or four different meat processors and the origin of the meat is often untraceable.
The Telegraaf says the industry itself is waiting for the report on tenterhooks following a string of food safety scandals over the past year.

These involve beef contaminated with horse and feces and salmonella in salmon.

Last year some 60,000 people suffered salmonella poisioning in the Netherlands, the paper says.

Yet the number of NVWA food safety inspectors has been ‘eaten away’ over the past few years.