Brussels produces new definition of meat
A new definition of the word ‘‘meat’’ will come into force in Ireland in 2003 - courtesy of the Brussels Commission.
The move is designed to protect consumers and give them more accurate and detailed information about the contents of sausages and cooked and canned meats.
Officials on the EU’s Standing Committee on Foodstuffs say the word cannot be employed in food labelling in future if it is used for any ‘‘meat-based’’ product containing too much fat and an excess of tendons from pigs, birds and rabbits and not enough ‘‘skeletal-attached muscle’’.
A Commission statement said: ‘‘The only current Community definition of meat makes no distinction between muscle-meat, fat and offal, whereas consumers generally perceive meat to mean muscle-meat.’’
David Byrne, the Commissioner responsible for consumer health and safety, said harmonising the definition of meat would make labelling more transparent and more precise.
‘‘I believe that consumers have the right to the best possible information on the food they are eating. Labelling is an essential instrument to that end, and my priority is to help consumers make an informed choice.
‘‘The Directive we are adopting today also eliminates a number of obstacles to trade caused by differing national definitions.’’
The new law, which must be applied in all EU countries from January 1 2003, restricts the definition of meat to ‘‘the skeletal-attached muscles’’.
Other parts of animals for human consumption, such as fat or offal - the heart, intestine and liver - will now have to be labelled precisely as such, and not as ‘‘meat’’.
However the law does provide for a certain part of the fat content of meat to be called meat ‘‘where it adheres to the muscles’’.
The source of the ‘‘meat’’ must be labelled systematically too, by using terms like ‘‘beef meat’’, and ‘‘pig meat’’ to help consumers better understand price differences between meat products.
The new definition of ‘‘meat’’ excludes ‘‘mechanically-separated meat’’, which in future will have to be labelled separately and will not be allowed to form part of the meat content of any products in which it occurs.
