Cows surround storks in a field in Zywkowo, northern Poland | Janek Skarzynski/AFP via Getty Images Poland plans to tighten vet control after export of ‘unfit’ beef Warsaw is scrambling to preserve the country’s reputation as a reliable meat exporter.

WARSAW — Poland plans to propose a law next week tightening controls over the country’s slaughterhouses after reporters went undercover in one abattoir and recorded the slaughter of seemingly ill or crippled cows without veterinary supervision.

It's an effort to limit the potential damage to Poland’s reputation as beef producer and one of the EU's top food exporters.

Over 2,500 kilograms of meat from the illegally slaughtered cows was sold to 14 EU countries, according to the EU’s Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF), which Poland warned about “veterinary controls not properly carried out for bovine meat from Poland presumably unfit for human consumption.”

A European Commission official said that Poland triggered the food safety alert system on January 29 following a request from Brussels.

The Commission sent a team of inspectors to Poland to carry out a four-day audit of the country's food safety and veterinary controls, which will continue until Friday.

"They will be assessing the situation on the ground together with the Polish authorities who are in the lead of the investigation, so let's wait for them to do their job," said Commission spokesperson Anca Paduraru.

Poland's Permanent Representation to the EU said the country is "fully cooperating on this matter with EC auditors" and that the case is "an isolated incident."

The results of the audit are expected to be published by March.

The report by Poland's TVN television showed an apparently lame cow being dragged to slaughter, and workers showing slabs of meat with sections cut out they said were visibly defective.

Warsaw insists that the meat was safe to eat.

“The cows were slaughtered without proper supervision and that is why it had to be withdrawn from the market. But the meat was safe,” said Jerzy Wierzbicki, head of the Polish Association of Beef Cattle Breeders.

"Everything so far indicates that it is an incidental case. Such incidents do not indicate the general state of veterinary services," stressed the Polish government in an emailed statement.

The abattoir where the reporters filmed their report was promptly shut down. Two veterinarians working in the slaughterhouse were also fired, along with their supervisor. The government and beef producers insisted that the lax supervision was an isolated incident rather than widespread practice.

Agriculture Minister Jan Krzysztof Ardanowski said Tuesday that supervision of abattoirs must be tightened, adding that he would propose a bill next week to give Poland’s General Veterinary Inspectorate more control over slaughterhouses.

Ardanowski promised money for more full-time veterinarians to carry out checks. He also said meat producers would pay the inspectorate for the checks rather than directly paying a contracted veterinarian, as is the case now.

The minister also wants constant video monitoring in trucks transporting livestock as well as inside slaughterhouses to minimize risks of sick animals being supplied for slaughter and the slaughter itself being carried out without supervision.

Poland’s reputation as a reliable beef exporter to EU markets is taking a battering, and local farmers are expecting big losses. The biggest importers of Polish beef are Italy, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Great Britain and France.

“Unfortunately, it is obvious that Poland does not have a well-established system of controls and veterinary supervision, or there were violations of the law,” the Czech Agriculture Minister Miroslav Toman said on February 1, before meeting Ardanowski on Tuesday.

“The whole controversy led to a drop in beef price which, if it persists this year, will cause breeders and producers to lose 600 million złoty [€140 million],” said Wierzbicki.

Poland produced around 560,000 tons of beef in 2017, according to Eurostat. Some 470,000 tons — or 80 percent of overall production — was exported, according to the Polish Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics. Exports brought in €1.6 billion in 2017, up by 18.2 percent compared to 2016.