Meat (Disease Control) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2000

Amendments to the Meat Products (Hygiene) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1997

4.  The Meat Products (Hygiene) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1997(1) shall be amended as follows—

(a) in regulation 2(1)—

(i) after the definition of “raw material” there shall be inserted the following definition—

““relevant EEA State” means an EEA State other than Iceland;”;

(ii) after the definition of “treatment” there shall be inserted the following definition—

““United Kingdom EC health mark” means the United Kingdom EC health mark described in paragraph 1 of Part VI of Schedule 2;”;

(b) regulation 8 shall be renumbered regulation 8.—(1) and after that paragraph there shall be added the following paragraphs—

“(2) A person shall not apply the United Kingdom EC health mark to, or consign or sell for consignment to a relevant EEA State for human consumption a meat product prepared in whole or in part from any meat referred to in—

(a) any of sub-paragraphs (e) to (i) of paragraph (3) of regulation 12 of the Fresh Meat Regulations; or

(b) paragraph 6 of Schedule 11 to the Poultry Meat Regulations,

unless the meat product has undergone treatment in accordance with paragraph D of Part VIII of Schedule 2.

(3) Any meat product to which paragraph (2) applies shall—

(a) be prepared only under official veterinary supervision and must be protected from any contamination or recontamination; and

(b) notwithstanding regulation 12(2), be accompanied during transportation by the health certificate referred to in regulation 12(1)(c).

(4) The meat referred to in paragraph (2) shall be stored separately or at a different time from meat which is not referred to in paragraph (2).”;

(c) in regulation 12 (storage and transportation conditions), sub-paragraphs (b) and (c) of paragraph (1) and paragraph (2) shall be replaced by the following provisions—

“(b) it is accompanied during transportation by a commercial document which bears the official approval code of the meat products premises of origin; and

(c) subject to paragraph (2), it is accompanied during transportation by a health certificate signed by an authorised officer of an enforcement authority at the time of loading corresponding in form and content to that specified in Schedule 4 where—

(i) it contains meat from a slaughterhouse while that slaughterhouse was under restriction by virtue of an Order made under the Diseases of Animals (Northern Ireland) Order 1981;

(ii) it contains meat bearing a special mark under regulation 12(2)(c) or (d) of the Fresh Meat Regulations; or

(iii) it is intended to be sent to a relevant EEA State after transit through a third country.

(2) The requirement for a health certificate at paragraph (1)(c) shall not apply to a meat product in a hermetically sealed container where the product has undergone the treatment referred to in paragraph B(a) of Part VIII of Schedule 2 and the health mark is indelibly marked on the container.

(2A) Where a meat product is intended to be sent to a relevant EEA State after transit through a third country it shall be transported in a sealed means of transport.”;

(d) paragraph (3) of regulation 12 shall be replaced by the following—

“(3) An enforcement authority may make a reasonable charge for the issue of any health certificate pursuant to paragraph (1)(c).”;

(e) at the end of Part VIII of Schedule 2 (special conditions) there shall be added—

“D.— (1) Subject to sub-paragraph (3), the meat products to which regulation 8(2) applies, shall undergo one of the following forms of treatment—

(a) heat treatment in a hermetically sealed container with an Fo value of 3.00 or more; or

(b) in the case of a meat product which has been prepared exclusively from or with pigmeat which has been obtained from a holding or area which at that time was not subject to any restriction on health grounds following the discovery of African Swine Fever—

(i) the meat must be fully de-boned and the main lymphatic glands removed before heating;

(ii) the meat must be enclosed in the hermetically sealed container in which it is to be marketed and must undergo heat treatment in accordance with the following conditions:

• the product must be kept at a temperature of at least 60°C for a minimum of four hours during which the temperature must be at least 70°C for a minimum of thirty minutes;

• the temperature of a representative number of samples of each batch of the product must be monitored constantly, using automatic apparatus enabling the temperature to be recorded both in the centre of the pieces of greater weight and inside the heating equipment; and

• throughout these operations, the conditions laid down in the third sub-paragraph of Article 5A of Council Directive 72/461/EEC must be fulfilled.

(2) After heat treatment, a health mark shall be applied to the container in accordance with the requirements of Part VI.

(3) Notwithstanding paragraph (1), a meat product to which regulation 8(2) applies and which is prepared from fresh meat obtained from animals which, although they come from an area which is specified in regulation 12(3)(f) of the Fresh Meat Regulations do not come from a holding which is so specified, may, instead of undergoing one of the forms of treatment specified in paragraph (1), undergo—

(a) heat treatment of a type different from those referred to in paragraph (1), provided that the centre temperature is raised to at least 70°C;

(b) provided that the disease in question is not swine vesicular disease, treatment consisting in natural fermentation and maturation of not less than nine months for de-boned or boneless hams which—

(i) weigh not less than 5.5 kg; and

(ii) have an AW value of not more than 0.93 and a pH value of not more than 6; or

(c) if the disease in question is foot-and-mouth disease, the treatment referred to in paragraph (b) may be applied to bone-in ham which fulfils the conditions of sub-paragraphs (i) and (ii) of paragraph (b).”;

(f) in the form of the health certificate specified in Schedule 4 (health certificate for meat products), the text of the first footnote (d) and of footnote (e) shall be replaced by the following—

• “Mention any ionising radiation for medical reasons and specify whether treated in accordance with paragraph D(1) or paragraph D(3) of Part VIII of Schedule 2.”.

(1)

S.R. 1997 No. 494, as amended by S.R. 1999 No. 193, S.R. 2000 No. 78 and S.R. 2000 No. 191