Johannesburg - The Congress of SA Trade Unions found it disturbing that popular retail stores were stocking products with undeclared meat content, spokesperson Patrick Craven said on Tuesday.
"Just last month, these supermarkets said they trusted the meat products on their shelves... and gave consumers an assurance that their meat was not mixed with undeclared meat products," he said in a statement.
"This means either that they had not bothered to test the products, or had tested them and were lying about the results."
A University of Stellenbosch study recently found that nearly 60% of 139 products tested contained ingredients which were not listed on their labels, including donkey, water buffalo, goat, and pork.
The City Press newspaper later reported that supermarkets including Pick 'n Pay, Shoprite, Fruit and Veg City, Woolworths, and Spar had been identified as stocking incorrectly labelled meat products.
Cosatu urged the National Consumer Commission to investigate the matter.