Taco Bell's Beef Had Horse Meat In It Too [UPDATE]

For those playing the home version of Horse Meat Bingo, go ahead and daub the Taco Bell square.

The latest round of tests conducted by Britain's Food Standards Agency found that ground beef used at all local Taco Bell locations contained trace amounts of horse DNA.

Taco Bell released a statement saying it conducted its own testing, which confirmed the FSA's findings.

It subsequently recalled the affected stock from stores and put a stop to all purchases from the European plant that supplied the tainted meat.

The statement goes on to apologize to customers, and assure potential patrons that the company "take[s] this matter very seriously as food quality is our highest priority."

Taco Bell joins a growing number of high-profile brands that have been embroiled in the ongoing horse meat scandal.

Furniture retailer Ikea recently stopped the sale of Swedish meatballs at certain locations after horse meat was found in some of its product.

Burger King was also forced to acknowledge that some of its patties had contained horse meat after adamantly denying it for weeks.

UPDATE: Taco Bell in the US has released the following statement: "Our domestic restaurants have not been, and will not be, impacted because we do not use any meat from Europe. We stand for quality and we use 100% premium beef. Like all beef in the United States, ours is USDA inspected and then passes our own 20 quality checkpoints."

[Image by Jim Cooke, source photos via Shutterstock]