Findus knew a week ago that meals contained horse meat It received the results of tests carried out on three samples of the product, which confirmed the presence of equine DNA, on Jan 29. Six days later, 180,000 beef lasagnes were withdrawn from sale in the UK, with Findus citing a "labelling issue." Consumers were not informed until Thursday evening that some were made entirely of horse meat. Tom Watson, the Labour MP, claimed that the contaminated meat, which was provided by Comigel, a company based in Metz, north-east France, may have been sold to unsuspecting UK customers since last August. Comigel responded last Saturday that it was unable to do so and, two days later, Findus withdrew its beef lasagnes from the shelves. The FSA subsequently discovered that 11 lasagne dishes out of 18 were contaminated. Findus said investigations were currently under way to establish the original source of the meat, which had been supplied by the French company since 2011. Erick Lehagre, the chief executive of Comigel, insisted that it had never knowingly sold horse meat. We make pre-cooked meals and none of our products are based on horse meat. We do not recognise such products," he said. He declined to speculate on how the horse meat ended up in pre-prepared meals sold by Findus or who his suppliers were. A Comigel spokesman said last night that the company had identified the supplier responsible and had withdrawn all products linked to it. "We have informed the authorities," said the spokesman. A quarter of its output goes to schools, colleges, hospitals, retirement homes and company canteens. The FSA said in a statement that the evidence of significant amounts of horse meat first in burgers and now in lasagne "points to either gross negligence or deliberate contamination in the food chain." The Trading Standards Institute warned that the disclosures about lasagnes and burgers could be "the tip of the iceberg." Sales of genuine horse meat have more than doubled in Britain since the scandal broke, according to a supplier based in the Scottish Borders.