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Ireland publishes audit report on compliance of meat labelling and traceability requirements in the food industry

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On 31 May 2022, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) published an Audit Report on the compliance of meat labelling and traceability requirements in the food industry.  'Overall, the level of meat label compliance in prepackaged food varies,' the report said. 'Some companies were reviewed for good practices, including meat authenticity controls, routine DNA testing, and meat supply chain operations in food.'  The labels of more than 100 products have been checked, and most of the labeled food information is complete, accurate and appropriate.  It was found that 18 enterprises did not meet the label requirements of pre-packaged food, and 5 enterprises were found to be in serious non-conformity, involving forged identity marks, inaccurate approval numbers, misleading information, and lack of mandatory instructions (such as allergic substances). 

Other non-conformity problems include wrongly marked"consumption date", lack of mandatory instructions, violation of poultry meat sales standards, frozen food labels of certain enterprises marked "consumption date" instead of marking "best consumption date".  The report also evaluates the effectiveness of traceability systems in the food industry. Generally speaking, the level of non-conformity of meat traceability varies, mainly involving traceability based on internal quality balance, digital photo preservation of labels, retention of commercial documents, and retention of production records.  Ten enterprises were found not to meet the traceability requirements, and five enterprises were found to have serious non-conformity, mainly involving the inability to determine meat suppliers, unable to explain the status of food or non-edible animal by-products, food without labels or traceability, failure to explain the quantity of food, and failure to provide customer addresses.  Others involve meat that cannot be traced to the appropriate animal or fauna. 

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