Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/1182 of 20 April 2017 supplementing Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards the Union scales for the classification of beef, pig and sheep carcasses and as regards the reporting of market prices of certain categories of carcasses and live animals (c. 1182)

ANNEX IV U.K. Authorisation of automated grading methods for beef and sheep carcasses referred to in Article 10

PART A U.K. Conditions and minimum requirements for authorisation

1. The Member State concerned shall organise an authorisation test for a jury composed of at least five licensed experts in classification of carcasses of bovine or sheep animals. Two members of the jury shall come from the Member State performing the test. The other members of the jury shall each come from another Member State. The jury shall comprise an uneven number of experts. The Commission services and other Member States` expert may attend the authorisation test as observers. U.K.

The members of the jury shall work in an independent and anonymous way.

The Member State concerned shall nominate a coordinator of the authorisation test who shall:

(a)

not be part of the jury;

(b)

have satisfactory technical knowledge and be fully independent;

(c)

monitor the independent and anonymous functioning of the members of the jury;

(d)

collect the classification results of the members of the jury and those obtained by using the automated grading methods;

(e)

ensure that, during the entire duration of the authorisation test, the classification results obtained by using the automated grading methods shall not be available to any of the members of the jury and vice versa nor to any other interested party;

(f)

validate the classifications for each carcass and may decide, for objective reasons to be specified, to reject carcasses from the sample to be used for the analysis.

2. For the authorisation test: U.K.

(a)

each of the classes of conformation and of fat cover shall be subdivided into three subclasses;

(b)

a sample of at minimum 600 validated carcasses shall be required;

(c)

the percentage of failures shall be no more than 5 % of the carcasses that are fit for classification by using automated grading methods.

3. For each validated carcass, the median of the results of the members of the jury shall be considered as the correct grade of that carcass. U.K.

To estimate the performance of the automated grading method, the results of the automated grading method shall, for each validated carcass, be compared to the median of the results of the jury. The resulting accuracy of the grading by automated grading methods is established by using a system of points that are attributed as follows:

	Conformation	Fat cover
No error	10	10
Error of one unit (i.e. one subclass up or down)	6	9
Error of two units (i.e. two subclasses up or down)	– 9	0
Error of three units (i.e. three subclasses up or down)	– 27	– 13
Error of more than three units (i.e. more than three subclasses up or down)	– 48	– 30

With a view to authorisation, the automated grading methods should achieve at least 60 % of the maximum number of points for both conformation and fat cover.

In addition, the classification by using the automated grading methods must be within the following limits:

	Conformation	Fat cover
Bias	± 0,30	± 0,60
Slope of the regression line	1 ± 0,15	1 ± 0,30

Where during an authorisation test more than one carcass presentation is used, the differences between those carcass presentations shall not lead to differences in the classification results.

PART B U.K. Information to be provided to the Commission by Member States as regards the organisation of an authorisation test

(a)

The dates on which the authorisation test shall take place;

(b)

a detailed description of the carcasses of bovine animals aged eight months or more classified in the Member State concerned or a part thereof;

(c)

the statistical methods used for selecting the sample of carcasses that shall be representative, in terms of category, classes of conformation and of fat cover, of bovine animals aged eight months or more and sheep slaughtered in the Member State concerned or a part thereof;

(d)

the name and address of the slaughterhouse(s) where the authorisation test shall take place, an explanation of the organisation and performance of the processing line(s), including the speed per hour;

(e)

the carcass presentation(s) that shall be used during the authorisation test;

(f)

a description of the automated grading technique and its technical functions, in particular the security concept of the apparatus against any type of manipulation;

(g)

the licensed experts nominated by the Member State concerned to take part in the authorisation test as members of the jury;

(h)

the coordinator of the authorisation test, proving his satisfactory technical knowledge and full independence;

(i)

the name and address of the independent body designated by the Member State concerned that shall analyse the results of the authorisation test.

PART C U.K. Information to be provided to the Commission by Member States as regards the results of an authorisation test

(a)

A summary of the classification results signed by the members of the jury and by the coordinator during the authorisation test;

(b)

a report of the coordinator on the organisation of the authorisation test in view of the conditions and minimum requirements set out in Part A;

(c)

a quantitative analysis, according to a methodology to be agreed upon by the Commission, of the results of the authorisation test indicating the classification results of each expert classifier and those obtained by using the automated grading methods. The data used for the analysis must be provided in an electronic format to be agreed upon by the Commission;

(d)

the accuracy of the automated grading methods established in accordance with the provisions in point 3 of Part A.