2. DENNIS CRYER Veterinary Meat Hygiene Adviser Food Standards Agency

3. Commission Regulation on Microbiological Criteria for Foodstuffs
Regulation (EC) No 2073/2005
Covers all foodstuffs produced in food establishments that are subject to the requirements of Regulation (EC) 852/2004 (Known as H1).
Includes foodstuffs produced in slaughterhouses and cutting premises.
Does not cover primary production eg. Farms.

4. Microbiological Criteria Regulation
Foodstuffs should not contain micro-organisms or their toxins or metabolites in quantities that present an unacceptable risk for human health.
This statement recognises that it may not always be possible to totally eliminate all undesirable micro-organisms.

5. Food business operators Competent authorities
Regulation (EC) No. 178/2002
laying down the general principles and requirements of food law, establishing the European Food Safety Authority and laying down procedures in matters of food Safety
Food business operators
Competent authorities
Regulation (EC) No. 852/2004
on the hygiene of foodstuffs
Regulations (EC) No. 882/2004 on official controls performed to ensure the verification of compliance with feed and food law, animal health and animal welfare rules
General
Specific
Regulation (EC) No. 854/2004 laying down specific rules for the organisation of official controls on products of animal origin intended for human consumption
Regulation (EC) No. 853/2004 laying down specific hygiene rules for the hygiene foodstuffs
of animal origin

6. Regulation (EC) No 178/2002
Lays down general food safety requirements according to which food must not be placed on the market if it is unsafe.
The Commission considered that it is therefore appropriate to establish harmonised safety criteria on the acceptability of food.
Particularly as regards the presence of certain pathogenic micro-organisms.

7. Scope of Commission Regulation on Microbiological Criteria for Foodstuffs
The Regulation lays down the microbiological criteria for certain micro-organisms.
Lays down implementing rules to be complied with by food business operators (FBOs) when implementing the general and specific hygiene measures referred to in Article 4 of Reg (EC) 852/2004.

8. Article 4 Regulation (EC) 852/2004
Requires FBOs to comply with microbiological criteria.
Appropriate therefore to lay down implementing measures concerning:
Analytical methods
Measurement uncertainty
Sampling plans
Microbiological limits
Analytical units that should comply with the limits

9. Definitions Microbiological criterion:
Means a criterion defining the acceptability of a product, batch of foodstuffs or a process,based on the absence, presence or number of micro-organisms and/or on the quantity of their toxins/metabolites,per unit of mass,volume,area or batch.

10. Definitions Food safety criterion:
Means a criterion defining the acceptability of a product or a batch of foodstuff applicable to products placed on the market.
Process hygiene criterion:
Means a criterion indicating the acceptable functioning of the production process.Such a criterion is not applicable to products placed on the market. It sets an indicative contamination value above which corrective actions are required in order to maintain the hygiene of the process.

11. Process Hygiene Criterion
Process hygiene criteria give guidance on the acceptability of foodstuffs and the hygiene of their manufacturing, handling and distribution processes.
Use of process hygiene criteria should form an integral part of HACCP based procedures /GMP/GHP.

12. Microbiological testing of carcases
Why test?
The level of microbiological contamination cannot be established by visual inspection.
Testing is an objective way to verify that the HACCP plan is achieving what it is designed to achieve.( Verification - HACCP Principle 6)
Testing is carried out for organisms which are indicators of general and faecal contamination - TVCs and Enterobacteriaceae.
Provides a useful indication of the level of hygiene in the slaughter and dressing processes

13. Sampling and Testing Frequencies
Food safety criteria.
Testing frequencies, micro-organisms, analytical reference method, sampling plan and limits are laid down in Chapter1 of Annex1 of the Regulation.
Process hygiene criteria.
FBOs to decide themselves on the necessary sampling and testing frequencies as part of their HACCP based food safety management system – with the specific exception of Salmonella presence.
Chapter 2 of Annex1 of the Regulation

14. Food Safety Criteria
Applicable to minced meat and meat preparations intended to be eaten raw and minced meat and meat preparations made from poultry meat intended to be eaten cooked.
Applicable to meat products intended to be eaten raw and products made from poultry meat intended to be eaten cooked.
In all cases the target micro-organism is Salmonella and the stage where the criterion applies is - products placed on the market during their shelf life.

15. Applicable Standard
In the case of minced meat, meat preparations and meat products:
Absence of Salmonella from a sample of 5 individual units making up the final sample taken weekly.
From 1st January 2006 the microbiological limit is defined as absence from 10g of sample.(Except for meat products intended to be eaten raw - where the standard is absence from 25g of sample)
From 1st January 2010 the standard becomes more stringent for all – absence from 25g of sample.

16. Process Hygiene Criteria
Specific requirements other than those forming part of the FBOs HACCP based food safety management system:
TVC and Enterobacteriaceae. Samples taken after dressing but before chilling in the case of red meat carcases.
Useful website: Gives details of testing methodology frequencies etc.
Absence of Salmonella in the area tested per carcase in the case of cattle,sheep,goats,pigs and horses. Absence of Salmonella in 25g of a pooled sample of neck skin in the case of poultry.

17. Sampling Rules for Poultry Carcases
A minimum of 15 carcases must be sampled at random after chilling per week.
Approximately 10g of neck skin to be obtained from each carcase.
Neck skin samples from 3 carcases to be pooled in order to form 5 final samples exceeding 25g.

18. Sampling Frequency
The weekly sampling frequency can be reduced to fortnightly if satisfactory results have been obtained for 30 consecutive weeks.
Reduction of sampling frequency possible where there is a National or Regional Salmonella program in place – if the program includes testing that replaces the previously described program.
Sampling frequency may be further reduced if the National or Regional control program demonstrates that Salmonella prevalence is low in birds supplied to the slaughterhouse.

19. Finally
Small slaughterhouses and establishments producing minced meat and meat preparations in small quantities may be exempted from these sampling frequencies:
On the basis of the results of a risk analysis.
Consequent authorisation by the Competent Authority.

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