For years, millions of takeaway customers who bit into a lamb doner kebab were actually eating goat, skin and fat — a fraud investigators have compared to the 2013 horsemeat lasagne scandal.
Kismet Kebabs, one of the UK's largest doner kebab makers, has been fined £500,000 after pleading guilty in court to a fraud that dates back to 2021. The company is estimated to have made £6m from the deception.
“Millions likely ate goat, skin and fat in 'lamb' kebabs; Kismet Kebabs fined £500,000 after DNA tests revealed fraud.”
Concerns first emerged when trading standards officers in Swansea began randomly DNA testing doner meat from local takeaways in 2020 and 2021. Kebabs labelled as "70% lamb" came back showing "less than 10% sheep".
"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.
Investigators raided the Kismet factory in Latchingdon, near Chelmsford, in May 2021. They found no lamb being delivered. "We didn't see any lamb apart from lamb fat," said Harries. "There were pallets of goat, pallets of trim, offcuts with high fat content, boxes of fat, boxes of skin, bits of mutton. It all goes into a massive mincer and comes out looking like Play-Doh."
The firm advertised its lamb doner kebabs as containing up to 87% lamb, depending on the variety. But the reality was far different.
"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," Harries added. "It's almost the same as the horsemeat scandal, because of the volume of product that was going out of this factory."
Kismet Kebabs said the fraud related to "historical events that occurred over five years ago" and when they "operated under a different leadership structure". The company produces more than 100 tonnes of kebab varieties each week.