Compass, Greencore and Whitbread caught up in horse meat scandal Clive Black, analyst at Shore Capital, said: "The scale of the adulteration to date has proved to be more than a body blow to the food chain. No doubt further disappointment will follow, although new testing procedures are likely to follow this issue, which may be a force for good. In a research note, credit rating agency Moody's said the crisis risks hurting highly-leveraged companies in the food industry that have "relatively low product diversity." It added: "The high leverage has been fostered in part because of the interest of private equity owners, who are attracted by the perceived stability of cash flow generation typically exhibited by these kinds of companies. These companies, with their ongoing debt service needs, are very sensitive to top-line losses and increased costs and have little tolerance for material event risk. Whitbread said that it was "shocked and disappointed" after finding horse meat in a lasagne and a beefburger. The company sent 30 products to be tested and has pulled the affected products from its menus. However, Britain's supermarkets began to fight back against the crisis. J Sainsbury, Wm Morrison, the Co-op, and Aldi said further tests on their products had failed to find any traces of horse meat. The chief executive of Tesco, Philip Clarke, also pledged to set a "new benchmark" for the testing of food after Downing Street criticised supermarkets for an "unacceptable" wall of silence.