Diners served poor-quality zebu steak at UK pubs

Ordering a steak in a British pub may acquaint you with an exotic animal you have never heard of nor seen. An undercover investigation has found that many of the prime cuts that one might have assumed came from a British cow actually come - at least partly - from a humped oxon-like creature living in Africa and Brazil.

The zebu is often cross-bred with European cattle to make them survive tropical conditions and has a reputation of producing poor meat.

The discovery that DNA from it rather than a Hereford or Aberdeen Angus is filling the stomachs of diners at British pubs was made by an ITV programme to be screened tonight, Undercover Mum. In the programme, a former undercover policewoman, Nina Hobson, visited 15 pubs belonging to two of Britain's biggest pub groups, JD Wetherspoons and Greene King's Hungry Horse chain.

Ms Hobson, who has two children, randomly selected the pubs from the chains' 650 outlets across Britain.

Staff sometimes said that the steaks she ordered were British or they did not know where the meat came from. The programme sent samples of the meat for laboratory analysis. It found - allegedly - that three out of nine Hungry Horse and four out of six JD Wetherspoons pubs were selling steaks with DNA from the zebu.

Although legal, the animal and its cross-breeds were removed from a British quality scheme. In April, the English Beef and Lamb Executive explained: "Tropically adapted Zebu breeds produce meat with an overall poorer eating quality and more variability than that from British or European breeds."

JD Wetherspoons said it sold 140,000 steaks a week. It added: "Zebu is ... taxonomically identical to any other breed of cattle such as Charolais, Limosin or Hereford." Hungry Horse said it did "not sell zebu steaks".