Furniture giant Ikea stopped the sale of its staple Swedish meatballs in many stores throughout Europe after Czech inspectors found that frozen meatballs which were labeled as containing beef and pork actually contained horse meat.

The mega retailer posted on its Facebook page on Monday that it halted the sale of meatballs at its stores in Sweden out of concern for "potential worries among our customers."

Shortly afterwards, the company announced that the affected batch of Swedish-made meatballs had been sold in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal and France.