LPT 321: Meat Science (1+1)

INTRODUCTION

• Regulation of the quality of meat placed in trade is essential to ensure uniformity in quality; and pricing of meat and meat products based on their quality,
• Microbial standards are necessary to ensure safe meat is made available to consumers. The various terms in vogue to address this concern of the meat industry are microbial standard, specification and guideline.
• A microbial standard is a microbiological criterion that is part of a law, or regulation, mandatory and enforceable by the regulatory agency involved.
• A microbial specification is a microbiological criterion that is applied as a condition of acceptance for a food or ingredient by a food manufacturer. Microbiological specifications are generally contractual agreements between a manufacturer and purchaser to check whether the foods are of required quality.
• Microbiological guidelines, which are non- mandatory criteria usually intended as a guide to good manufacturing practice.
• The major law involved in governing meat trade in India is Meat Food Products Order, 1973 and the most recent development governing Food Safety in India is the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 over and above standards set out with respect to Meat by Bureau of Indian Standards.
• The major standards governing international food trade is ISO 22000 standard and microbial standards are set by International Committee on Microbial Specification on Foods (ICMSF), and European Economic Community.
• The ensuing discussion presents a detailed description of the above standards.