New rules for marketing ground beef will come into force

As of November 1st, the ground beef industry will need to undergo changes in terms of quality criteria both in grinding and marketing. That was what the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply established, which determined that the new rules for marketing ground beef aim to generate more transparency.

Read more: Anvisa recalls batches of Haagen-Dazs ice creams for containing carcinogenic substances.

Higher quality rigidity

According to the announcement, the reason that led to the adoption of the new rules is the need to modernize the procedures of the ground beef industry. Thus, it is expected to make the whole procedure safer, from grinding to packaging the product, and bring more transparency to the consumer regarding these products.

Furthermore, there is also an interest in ensuring that the ground beef sold in Brazil is of high quality and essentially meat, i.e. not other by-products sold with the ground beef label. See the new rules:

• Meat must be packaged immediately after grinding and each package must have a maximum of 1 kilogram;
• It is forbidden to obtain ground meat made by grinding bone scraping meats, as well as obtained from any other processes of mechanical separation of bones;
• The raw material for the manufacture of ground meat must only be meat submitted to previous cooling and freezing processing;
• The use of ground meat from the grinding of offal and industrial meat is prohibited.

Who the new rules apply to

Producers of ground beef with due registration with the Federal Inspection Service (SIF) and the Brazilian System of Inspection of Products of Animal Origin (Sisbi-POA) need to adapt to the new rules.

These should begin to implement the necessary measures for the correct use of the new rules within a period of one year, starting from the next November 1st. Furthermore, small meatpacking, grocery store or butchery owners should not be concerned, as the measure does not apply to them.