Quantifications of the Controls that Should be Placed on the Age of Meat at Mincing

<p>Current legislation imposes an age limit on meat from slaughter to mincing. A review carried out for the Agency in 2006 concluded that there is no evidence in the scientific literature to support or refute this legislation.</p>

<p>This study aims to provide data to help the FSA quantify the controls that should be placed on meat prior to mincing using a risk based approach.</p>

<p>In conjunction with industry the study will:</p>

<ul>
<li>identify and describe industrial practice and collect available data</li>
<li>update the review produced in 2006</li>
<li>determine the microbiological status of currently produced mince</li>
<li>assess the likelihood of safety and quality problems using existing chilling and storage data</li>
</ul>

<p>The results of this project will provide evidence to allow the Agency to better determine, within procedures based on HACCP principles, what controls if any should be placed on meat prior to mincing. Production of beef, lamb, pork turkey and venison mince will be covered in these investigations.</p>

<p>In addition the information can be used under the current regulations as guidance in the FSA's ‘Guide to food hygiene &amp; other regulations for the UK meat industry’, and will provide evidence for the new slaughterhouse hygiene assessment tool at UKmeat.org and guidance as to what parameters to record in the UK FSA-Industry Meat Test Results database.</p>