State of play on activities within the Codex Committee on Meat

Hygiene

Andrew McKenzie, Chief Executive

New Zealand Food Safety Authority

State of play on activities within the Codex Committee on Meat Hygiene

Andrew McKenzie, Chief Executive

New Zealand Food Safety Authority

Conference on the Revision of Meat Inspection

CCMH work history

• Pre SPS Agreement

• Committee sessions in early 1990s

Importance of ante and post mortem inspection at that stage Growing recognition that food borne illness attributed to

microbial pathogens associated with gut and skin was a major issue

World Trade Organisation

SPS Agreement key driver - covering ‘health’ aspects of trade

Principles covering:

• Appropriate level of protection

• Science based risk assessments

• Regionalisation

• Concept of ‘equivalence’

CCMH work history

• Sessions in early 2000s

Introduced SPS principles into the thinking

Brought the various Codes together into a single Code of Hygienic Practice for Meat recognising the importance of process control and fact that ante and post-mortem inspection were merely components of this

Recognised the ‘duality of functions’ that ante- and post-mortem inspection fulfilled in terms of animal and public health

Recognised the roles that industry, government and third parties provide or might provide, the responsibilities and the competencies required and who should lay these down

Ante and Post-mortem Meat Inspection

6.1 Principles of Meat Hygiene applying to animals presented for slaughter

iii Slaughter animals should be subjected to ante-mortem inspection, with the competent authority determining the procedures and tests to be used, how inspection is to be implemented and the competencies of personnel involved

iv Ante-mortem inspection should be science- and risk-based as appropriate to the circumstances and should take into account all relevant information from the level of primary production

v Relevant information from primary production where available and results of ante-mortem inspection should be utilised in process control

vi Relevant information from ante-mortem inspection should be analysed and returned to the primary producer as appropriate

Ante and Post-mortem Meat Inspection

9.1 Principles of Meat Hygiene applying to process control

iii Process control should limit microbiological contamination to the lowest level practicable, according to a risk-based approach

v Process control should reflect an integrated strategy for control of hazards throughout the food chain, with information available from primary production and pre-slaughter being taken into account wherever possible and practicable

vi All bodies of animals should be subjected to post-mortem inspection that is science- and risk-based, and is tailored to the hazards and/or defects that are reasonably likely to be present in the bodies of animals presented for inspection

Ante and Post-mortem Meat Inspection

9.1 Principles of Meat Hygiene applying to process control

viii Post-mortem inspection should take into account all relevant information from primary production, ante-mortem inspection, and from official or officially-recognised hazard control programmes

xii Competent bodies or competent persons may be engaged by the establishment operator to undertake prescribed process control activities, including ante- and post-mortem inspection, as approved by the competent authority

Code of Hygienic Practice for Meat

Is facilatory – rarely goes into prescriptive detail and when it does it is clear that the detail is a component of guidelines only

Encourages countries wishing to tailor their ante- and post-mortem inspection programmes depending on: Prevalence of disease/defects in the animals being slaughtered

and available information relating to the animals at various points in the production continuum

The desired outcomes of the programme in public health terms (appropriate level of protection – safety and suitability)

The desired outcomes of the programme in animal health terms (used for surveillance)

Requires trading partners or even competent authorities within a country to understand and utilise the SPS principles covering science/risk, regionalisation and equivalence

Code of Hygienic Practice for Meat

Issues around what an ante- and post-mortem programme really delivers in a public health sense – is there really a definable ‘appropriate level of protection’? Quad countries starting to question whether in fact we are not

taking a broad enough view of the outcomes achieved in our programmes and seeing them as achieving ‘comparable’ results. Particularly in a ‘Process Control’ sense.

All developed countries have similar public health objectives and sophisticated programmes based on continuous improvement. It is hard to say one is better than another and we all acknowledge that we all have our little problems from time to time but we contain them and certainly do not give them to our neighbours/trading partners

We debate ‘measures equivalence’ instead of understanding and focussing on ‘systems equivalence’

Code of Hygienic Practice for Meat

The Code is ‘current’ and we have not yet learned to fully explore its licence and take advantage of tailoring your programme to your own specific needs, delivering good results in a cost effective manner

There is no pressure to revive the Committee and the odd issue that crops up can be dealt with by working groups of CCFH

The prescriptive detail of the earlier Codes have not been lost. They are in fact captured in FAO’s ‘Good Practices in the Meat Industry 2004’. This serves as a starting point of good practice for countries that do not have the capacity to tailor their programmes using SPS principles

Many of us are in fact starting to take the horizontal themes from the Code and work with them to modernise our programme and make them more relevant

State of play on activities within the Codex Committee on Meat

Hygiene

Andrew McKenzie, Chief Executive

New Zealand Food Safety Authority

State of play on activities within the Codex Committee on Meat Hygiene

Andrew McKenzie, Chief Executive

New Zealand Food Safety Authority

Conference on the Revision of Meat Inspection