In many news reports, the escalating eggs scandal is being likened to 2013s horsemeat scandal, with both food scares spreading across Europe quite rapidly.

Last week, the European Commission said a total of 15 EU states, as well as Switzerland and Hong Kong, are now known to have received eggs contaminated with the pesticide fipronil, which is not authorised for use in food producing animals and can be harmful to human health in large quantities.

The EU countries affected are Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Sweden, the UK, Austria, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Denmark.

Despite the commission saying a meeting of EU ministers scheduled for the end of next month to discuss the scandal was not a crisis meeting, the escalating problem has led to growing concern globally.

Britain, for example, originally said it had imported 21,000 eggs from Dutch farms implicated in the scandal, but later increased this to 700,000. Meanwhile, the number of countries thought to be affected rose to seven within a week of the news breaking and now sits at 17.

Since the scare first emerged at the beginning of August, farms have been shut down in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and France, millions of eggs and egg based products have been removed from the shelves of European supermarkets, and two men suspected of being involved in the illegal use of pesticide at poultry farms have been detained.

The commission said the not crisis meeting has been scheduled with some distance in order to establish as many facts as possible.

Going back to the horsemeat scandal, just a couple of weeks ago, two men were imprisoned for their involvement in the scam, while a third received an 18-month suspended sentence.