There’s some shady going-ons involving11 tons of listeria and salmonella-contaminated hamburger meat in Turkey.

Today’s Zaman has been reporting the meat scandal broke after a company, Fasdat Gıda, responsible for distributing meat to fast-food giant Burger King, cancelled its contract with a producer called TT Gıda – on grounds that the meat was contaminated.

TT Gıda demanded that the 11.6 tons of meat be returned, but Fasdat Gıda said it had been sent to the Zeybek Solid Waste Center for safe disposal, prompting TT Gıda to file a complaint with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

Subsequent investigations showed that the waste disposal company sent the meat to a kangal dog farm in Bursa, where 55 dogs were said to have eaten the rank 160,000 hamburger patties over a period spanning May 5 to June 7.

The ministry’s Inspection Committee head, Metin Süerdem said that if the dogs did eat the meat, they would have been killed.

“This shows the meat was not eaten by the dogs,” he said.

“We got an expert to investigate this claim. It is impossible for dogs to eat such an amount of meat in two months. There is only one possibility left: This meat was on the market,” Süerdem said.