Reliability of remote post-mortem veterinary meat inspections in pigs using augmented-reality live-stream video software

Abstract

Official meat inspections at remotely situated, small-scale slaughter houses and game handlings establishments fare associated with a relatively high cost of official control per inspected animal. By performing veterinary meat inspections via live-streamed video, this cost could be lowered. We aimed to evaluate how veterinary meat inspections at slaughter can be conducted remotely with the help of a camera-equipped non-veterinary technician on site. Specialized software and augmented reality technology were used. The remote inspection was compared to standard on-site veterinary meat inspection at a large-scale slaughter plant for pigs in Sweden during 2019. The remote and on-site inspectors recorded findings in 400 carcasses and organs arrested for further inspection. The comparison was based primarily on percentage agreement, Cohen's kappa and prevalence- and bias-adjusted kappa (PABAK) as measures of agreement and reliability. The remote method was shown to display a high level of agreement for clear, easily distinguished findings (e.g. tail lesions, with an agreement of 92.3%, Cohen's kappa of 0.77 and PABAK of 0.85). For more vague findings and subjective decisions, the performance was slightly lower (e.g. whether or not to condemn a carcass completely, with agreement 75.2%, Cohen's kappa 0.32 and PABAK 0.50). Remote inspection appears to constitute a viable alternative for post-mortem meat inspection in pigs, given a sufficiently standardized method of inspection and sufficient inspection times. The performance of remote inspection probably depends on which persons use the method.