Millions of takeaway doner kebab lovers probably realise the meat isn't the best quality - but did they know they were eating skin, fat and goat?
Is that all? Whew! Dodged a bullet, I feel!
BBC News has been told the kebabs from Kismet Kebabs, which describes itself as one of the UK's largest doner kebab makers, were sold to fast food outlets across the UK for years. DNA testing revealed the kebabs were meant to be "70% lamb" - but were actually showing "less than 10% sheep".
And they’ve now been closed down, right? Wrong!
The firm was fined £500,000 after admitting to a fraud that dates back to 2021.
Kismet Kebabs, which is estimated to have made £6m from the fraud, said it related to "historical events" over five years ago when they "operated under a different leadership structure".
Sure, sure…
The Essex-based company advertised and labelled its lamb doner kebabs as being made with up to 87% lamb – depending on the kebab. But concerns were raised when trading standards officers in Swansea began to randomly DNA test doner meat from takeaways in the city in 2020 and 2021.
I’m frankly astounded that this was discovered in Wales, of all places, but I guess they have an industry to protect.
"I think some customers won't be surprised there's a lot of skin and fat in these products - but I don't think many people will be expecting goat," said Swansea trading standards officer Rhys Harries.
"A consumer buying a kebab knows it's probably not the best quality ingredients, but it's still got to be what it says it is," said Harries. "It's almost the same as the horsemeat scandal, because of the volume of product that was going out of this factory."
Confession time: I have never eaten a kebab of the ‘elephant leg’ type (shish kebabs are ok) for the very reason that you’ve no idea what’s in it, and it comes as no surprise that it isn’t what you’d think!
