Aspects of life cycle in its projection onto production of meat and meat-containing canned food: systematic review

Abstract

While choosing one or another product from a wide variety on the market, we intuitively focus on the quality of the food product, we pay attention to its source, raw material and how this food is made. At the same time, the same questions are being asked by food manufacturers as they want to be sure of the quality and safety of purchased raw materials and ingredients. In both cases, decisions should be based on the consequences they could entail. It must be acknowledged that any failure in the field-to-shelf chain system may harm the consumers’ health, as well as may lead to disruptions and losses in the food industry. Producers and consumers are increasingly concerned in the terms of life cycles. The life cycle is the most expressive and comprehensive approach to achieve the highest usefulness of the made decisions. The fact is that life cycle problems can be solved, and product life cycles can be managed, controlled and regulated. This is widely applied, for example, by the use of life cycle methodology in solving environmental problems highlighted in this article. However, in the meat processing industry the standards of the ISO 9000 series are not supported by this methodology. It was necessary to find and define the problem-exposed stages from the full life cycle of production of meat and meat-containing canned food within the system “from the field to the shop shelf”. Those problem-exposed stages are responsible for safety and quality of canned food and responsible for maintaining the safety and quality of ready-to-eat food products, as the most relevant stages in the meat processing industry. Here the author proposes for consideration three stages of the life cycle of canned meat and meat-containing food, including its pre-production, production process and post-production. It is assumed that the impacts at certain limited stages of the canned food production cycle will be representative in terms of consequences of applied decisions.