A halal lamb burger made by a company supplying Leicester schools contained up to 50% pork, the city council has confirmed today.
The product was made by Doncaster-based Paragon Quality Foods Limited, which said it had never knowingly bought or handled pork.
The discovery was made on April 18 and the burgers were withdrawn immediately but details only became public on Thursday.
A DNA test found the burger contained between 10 and 50% pork.
Trevor Pringle, the council director responsible for school meals said: "We have only received the DNA test result for one burger to date and we shared this figure with the Federation of Muslim Organisations early on in our investigation.
"This result indicated between 10 and 50% pork content. To get a better understanding of this, and to support enforcement action, we have asked for more burgers from different batches to be analysed.
"We expect those to be back sometime next week. We are clear however, that any level of pork content in this product is unacceptable and this has informed our approach"
"Food analysts tell us that the lower percentage is a more reliable figure than the higher end, however for the above reasons we want to be more certain. We hope to be able to do this when the additional tests come back next week."
