SYDNEY, Australia -- An Australian meat company owner said Wednesday he replaced beef destined for the United States with horse and kangaroo meat because of financial troubles.
Raymond Hammond, owner of Hammond Meats, said he ran a legitimate business for the first two months of his rented occupancy on the Protean Holdings grounds in Richmond, Victoria state.
But he said he then ran into financial troubles and began the meat swapping.
'Things were so hard I suppose you think a bit deeper when you are not making any money,' Hammond told a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Australian meat industry.
Hammond, who has pleaded guilty to 51 charges of forging certificates and federal meat stampings, said that between October 1980 and July 1981 he placed some 3,163 cartons of kangaroo and horse meat in consignments bound for U.S. and Australian markets.
Last August the U.S. Department of Agriculture revealed that horsemeat had been found in beef shipped to San Diego and Hayward, Calif.; Houston and Dallas, Texas; and Denver, Colo. and Phoenix, Ariz. In September horsemeat appeared in Indiana.
The United States is Australia's biggest beef customer and the scandal sent shock waves through the local meat industry with fears that the trade worth more than $600 million per year would be damaged seriously.
The Australian beef is ground and sold both on a wholesale and retail basis in the United States.
During Wednesday's testimony, employees of Protean Holdings said Hammond had replaced kangaroo meat heading for the United States with pure boneless beef just two days before the scandal broke.
It was unclear why Hammond had hurriedly decided to switch the meat back to beef.
Hammond faces a fine of at least $1,000 for substituting non-inspected meat.
As the inquiry proceeded, some Sydney residents wore T-shirts with the slogan: 'Eat More Kangaroo -- Three Million Yanks Can't Be Wrong.'
