Metrological aspects of the safety and quality of meat products

Abstract

The meat industry is one of the most important sectors of the economy closely related to animal husbandry. In the human diet, meat is the main source of animal protein. Therefore, quality of a final product is extremely important and depends on many factors at all stages of the production. Requirements for parameters of food safety and quality are established in the most countries and are revised permanently depending on the new scientific data.In the Russian Federation and the Customs Union, the controlled parameters are normalized on the basis of scientific data and approved for use in the relevant Technical Regulations. In order to avoid actions misleading consumers, special requirements for product labeling have been developed. In particular, the labeling of slaughter products and meat products must be conformed in accordance to the Technical Regulation of the Customs Union "Food products in terms of their labeling " - TR CU 022/2011, as well as to the some clauses of the Technical Regulation TR CU 034/2013 On the Safety of Meat and Meat Products.According to the working regulation, the manufacturers must indicate nutritional parameters (protein, fat, carbohydrates) of meat products on the product label as the parameter true values. At the same time, each standard for analytical methods includes a permissible relative error of the measured value at the confidence level of 0.95, which had not to be exceeded under the conditions described in the standard. In that way target measurement uncertainty is established.This paper shows the possible risks of false decisions when assessing meat products for its compliance with the labeling, depending on the measurement uncertainty, as well as methods for minimizing these risks.