Approaches to Meat Safety

Challenges and Opportunities of the European Risk-Based Pig Meat Safety Assurance System

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Abstract

The traditional pig meat safety assurance system—relying primarily on veterinary meat inspection and end-product testing—has significantly contributed to public health protection throughout the last century. However, in the recent decades, relevant scientific community and regulatory authorities have recognised that this system suffered from many flaws—the main being its limited ability to control currently most important meat-borne hazards. Therefore, in 2009, the European Commission triggered scientific work on modernisation of the traditional system by delegating the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) tasks to prioritise biological and chemical meat-borne hazards and propose a generic framework for a new, risk-based meat safety assurance system (RB-MSAS). Pig RB-MSAS proposed by EFSA in 2011 is flexible and dynamic, longitudinally integrated system that is focused on safety of chilled carcasses. The system incorporates meat inspection with producers’ food safety management systems and other farm-to-abattoir controls into a coherent whole. Its implementation has recently started in Europe as a direct result of the changes of relevant legislation in the European Union. Full implementation is expected to be a slow and careful process followed by thorough development, fine-tuning, and testing of practical feasibility and general impacts of the system.

How to Cite:

Blagojevic, B., (2023) “Challenges and Opportunities of the European Risk-Based Pig Meat Safety Assurance System”, SafePork 14(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/safepork.16348