Who does this affect?

This notice is for brokers and importers of uncooked ready-to-eat meat products to advise of proposed new requirements for these foods. These foods include foods such as uncooked jerky, uncooked salami and mettwurst. This notice and the proposed new requirements do not apply to uncooked slow dry cured ready-to-eat ham, such as Parma ham, Serrano ham and prosciutto. This notice and the proposed new requirements do not apply to uncooked ready-to-eat meat products from New Zealand.

What is proposed?

The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources is proposing that from December 2016, all consignments of uncooked ready-to-eat meat products must be covered by a recognised foreign government certificate.

Why is the change being proposed?

Food Standards Australia New Zealand has advised the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources that uncooked ready-to-eat meat products have the potential to pose a medium or high risk to public health for the pathogenic microorganism shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC). This risk statement is available here.

To protect public health and safety, the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources is proposing that uncooked ready-to-eat meat products be covered by a recognised foreign government certificate. This change would enable the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources to ensure that these meat products are produced with hygienic controls equivalent to those in Standard 4.2.3 – Production and processing Standard for Meat of the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code.

The recognised foreign government certificate for uncooked ready-to-eat meat products would be a different kind of certificate from that currently required for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy certification.

What would be the effect of the proposed change?

As uncooked ready-to-eat meat products are not currently permitted into Australia because of biosecurity requirements, the proposed change has no effect on trade.

The change would mean that uncooked ready-to-eat meat products could not be imported into Australia in the future unless they were covered by a recognised foreign government certificate that Australia has agreed with an exporting country.

Australia has not agreed to any certification for uncooked ready-to-eat meat products with any exporting country and so the proposed change would mean that these meat products could not be imported into Australia.

The requirement for certification would not affect the following uncooked ready-to-eat meat products:
•Uncooked slow dry cured ready-to-eat hams as there are inspection and analysis requirements that apply to these foods;
•Uncooked ready-to-eat meat products from New Zealand. There will be no change to the inspection and analysis of uncooked ready-to-eat meat products from New Zealand.
•Meat products that are not uncooked ready-to-eat meat products. There will be no change to the inspection and analysis of other kinds of meat products such as cooked meat products.

How would the proposed change be implemented?

The change would only be implemented if the Imported Food Control Order 2001 is amended to require recognised foreign government certification of uncooked ready-to-eat meat products.

Any change would be implemented by:
•referring the meat products using the relevant tariff codes in the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System developed by the World Customs Organization (WCO); and
•the use of an amended Community Protection question that would ask brokers to identify goods that are uncooked ready-to-eat meat products.

Products referred for inspection and analysis would not be released unless covered by a recognised foreign government certificate. The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources would also develop analysis criteria that would verify certification of uncooked ready-to-eat meat products.

Depending on comments received on this proposal, the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources would develop the requirements for certification and verification of this certification, and publish these requirements on its website.

Next steps?

Any person can comment on the proposal to require recognised foreign government certification of uncooked ready-to-eat meat products and can also comment on how the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources would propose to implement the proposal.

Because of the public health and safety risks associated with uncooked ready-to-eat meat products and because there is no existing trade, the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources requests that any comment are received by 9 am Australian Eastern Daylight Time on 13 December 2016. The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources may not be able to consider any comments received after this time.

Comments should be addressed to:

The Director
Imported Food
Compliance Division
Department of Agriculture and Water Resources.

Comments can be provided to Food Imports

http://www.agriculture.gov.au/import/goods/food/notices/ifn-18-16