Due to reports that traces of horse meat were found in hamburgers sold in some of UK and Ireland supermarkets, McDonald's Australia launched a new app that would allow diners to track where the ingredients came from, including if horse meat was used.

The free app is available for iOS users which works even on the actual food bought from Macca's, which is the popular Aussie name for McDonald's. The app was created by DDB Australia.

The app works by scanning the image of a food item bought from McDonald's using the iOS camera. The app, using GPS and the free Wi-Fi in McDonald's outlets and combining it with date and time, accesses the company's supply chain. It then pinpoints the source of the fast food items, not only meat, but also its French fries, veggies, pickles, burger, cheese, fish, bread and mayo.

Ireland's Food Safety Authority (FSAI) said the meat, sold in Dunnes Store, Lidl, Aldi and Iceland, were traced to two processing plants in Ireland, Liffey Meats and Silvercrest Foods, and the Dalepak Hambleton plant in Yorkshire. But none of the two Iceland factories slaughter horses or import horse meat, raising concerns about the source of the item.

Analysis by FSAI of 27 burger products found that 10 had traces of horse DNA and 23 of pig DNA.

However, FSIA assured that this is no human health risk to consuming horse meat and the burgers have been removed from shelves, while Tesco assured it would not happen again.

Meanwhile, the incident has given rise to horse meat memes in social media.

Hardest hit by the memes were Tesco, Britain's leading supermarket chain

And McDonald's as well

which gives burgers a bad name

The horses, of course, are not happy with this development

Now, even Tesco's adverts in sporting events are suspect of being sources of horseplay . . . er . . . horse meat, we mean.

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