Determination of Visual Lean 2005

The Meat Products (England) Regulations 2003 came fully into force in September 2003 and similarly into force in Wales on 31st May 2004. Embodied within these regulations is a revised definition of meat. The declarable meat content of meat products must now be calculated to allow for any excess fat or connective tissue, which falls outside the definition of meat.

To make this task easier for Local Authority Officers, the Public Analyst and IT team developed a dedicated software programme - the Eurofins Meat Content Calculator.

The Food Standards Agency Guidance Notes to the Meat Products (England) Regulations 2003 demonstrate how the meat content of a product can be calculated from knowledge of the cut and an assessment of the visual lean.

The purpose of this survey was to establish if producers are able to accurately assess the visual lean content of the meat they are using or, if buying in, that the specification is accurate. In turn this will determine whether butcher's products, such as sausages and burgers, can be made from recipes calculated using cuts of meat with stated visual lean contents without running the risk of creating a product with a consistent presence of undeclared excess fat.

Back to Survey Index | Sign in to access the full report