Draft import health standards for pig meat and pig meat products released for consultation

12 November 2007

MAF Biosecurity New Zealand (MAF BNZ) today issued, for public consultation, four draft Import Heath Standards (IHSs) developed for pig meat and pig meat products. The draft standards are based on an import risk analysis on porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) virus in pig meat.

The draft IHSs are proposed to replace existing IHSs for pig meat and pig meat products for human consumption from Canada and the United States of America, Mexico and the European Union.

Since the existing IHSs contain provisional measures, MAF BNZ has been obliged to undertake a full risk analysis to examine the risk of introducing PRRS in imported pig meat. The risk analysis, carried out over five years, was released for public consultation in July 2006. Forty four submissions were received, and a Review of Submissions was released in June this year.

This process involved assessing all the available scientific literature on PRRS. The risk analysis was peer-reviewed by seven international experts on PRRS. A further round of peer review was carried out on key points of the review of submissions.

A number of stakeholders contest the conclusions of the risk analysis, arguing that the proposed measures are insufficient to manage PRRS. By contrast, the European Union, United States and Canada view the current measures as unjustified for what is, in their opinion, negligible risk.

"New Zealand’s import measures must be technically justifiable, based on the best available science, and be consistent with our international obligations. Our recommendations are based on robust and reasonable science evidence and judgement, said Tim Knox, Director Border Standards, MAF Biosecurity New Zealand.

"Having considered all available information and a wide range of expert opinion, we consider the PRRS risk associated with ready-to-cook pork imports to be negligible if the measures proposed in the IHSs are applied.

"We are now at the stage where we are keen to hear the views of stakeholders. We recognise there are strongly held opposing views on the PRRS risks associated with the proposed IHSs and in recognition of this have extended the consultation period to 90 days. A full and thorough assessment of all submissions will be made at the completion of the consultation period. No decision to issue new IHSs will be made before then."

The public have until the 18th of February 2008 to make submission on the four proposed IHSs. The draft IHSs recommend the following sanitary measures:

  • Pig meat must be either from a country free from PRRS; or treated prior to import or on arrival, in an officially approved facility, by approved cooking or pH change;

or

  • Pig meat must be in the form of ready-to-cook cuts; or further processed on arrival, in an officially approved facility, into ready-to-cook cuts.

Details on the consultation process and the draft Import Heath Standards are available at http://www.biosecurity.govt.nz/strategy-and-consultation/consultation/pig-meat-ihs. The closing date for submissions is Monday, 18 February 2008.

Any person may make submissions on the draft IHS by writing to:

  • Vivian Dalley
    Border Standards
    MAF Biosecurity New Zealand
    PO Box 2526
    Wellington
  • Or by email to: vivian.dalley@maf.govt.nz

Media contact:

BACKGROUND

MAF's assessment of the risk

Until 2001 pig meat was imported into New Zealand without sanitary measures for porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) virus, as the prevailing scientific view was that PRRS virus was unlikely to be transmitted to pigs through eating meat from infected animals. However, a study completed in 2001 demonstrated that it was possible to transmit the virus by this route.

MAF's preliminary assessment of this study resulted in provisional measures being adopted from September 2001. These measures required that imported pig meat be either cooked or subjected to certain pH levels ('cured') before being given a biosecurity clearance into New Zealand. Since these measures were provisional, MAF was obliged to undertake a full risk analysis to examine the risk of introducing PRRS in imported pig meat.

The primary means by which PRRS could enter NZ - via the import of live pigs or pig semen - is already strictly controlled. The risk analysis only looks at the residual risks associated with pig meat. The central point of the risk analysis is that the likelihood of the PRRS virus entering NZ via pig meat and infecting a pig is extremely low. It was for this very reason that the move to allowing high value consumer ready cuts was suggested.

For PRRS to enter NZ in the first place, pork meat would have to leave foreign slaugherhouses with PRRS present and arrive in NZ with sufficient PRRS infectious virus. But:

  • a Canadian study has demonstrated that only 1.2% of meat at point of slaughter in that country contained PRRS virus. This study collected and stored samples in a manner specifically designed to maximize virus survival for the purposes of that study.
  • the European Food Safety Authority has estimated that the level of virus in meat that is processed normally, frozen and thawed for consumption is between 99% and 99.99% lower than the level at slaughter.

The European Food Safety Authority concluded that the level of PRRS virus in meat held at 4°C (i.e. chilled) declines by a factor of ten for each 30 hours stored. For this reason, imported chilled meat from infected pigs in North America or Europe would be expected to have very little infectivity present by the time it reached New Zealand consumers.

At present, around 95% of pig meat imported into NZ is frozen, although Australia has supplied larger volumes of chilled meat in the past. Given the shipping distance from Europe and North America, it is unlikely that chilled meat will be imported in significant volumes irrespective of New Zealand's regulatory regime.

For PRRS to then establish in New Zealand, the following steps would need to happen - if only one did not then PRRS would not establish:

  • Imported consumer-ready, high value cuts of pork would have to become available to backyard pigs. There are currently around 1.6 million households in New Zealand. The number of households with pigs is unknown, but the NZPIB model presented ‘a most likely estimate’ of 12,000 households with pigs. There is very little data to either support or challenge this estimate. While some small-scale pig owners may collect food waste from other households and institutions (restaurants, hospitals, etc), the overwhelming majority of food waste produced in New Zealand is not fed to pigs. Accordingly, only a small proportion of any pork sold in New Zealand could potentially be consumed by pigs.
  • MAF's definition of consumer-ready high-value cuts will exclude cuts likely to be trimmed prior to cooking, minimising the scope for meat scraps to be generated. Furthermore, the European Food Safety Authority has identified that scraps of fat and bone would be much less likely to contain infectious virus than scraps of muscle meat.
  • The virus is inactivated by cooking, meaning that any meat prepared for consumption then discarded does not pose a threat. Additionally, the virus breaks down at room temperature, with all virus inactivated in 1-6 days. Any delay in disposal of meat scraps therefore results in further declines in levels of infective virus present. EFSA concluded that in Europe, a minimum of 16 hours is likely to elapse between disposal of food scraps and pig feeding, and that a delay of this length would result in a further 32% decay of any PRRS virus present.
  • Raw meat scraps would have to be disposed of in garbage rather than by other routes and this garbage would have to be fed to backyard pigs without being cooked, in contravention of the current pig feeding regulations.
  • Pigs would have to ingest enough raw meat scraps to constitute an infectious dose. The size of this dose is unknown.

An infected pig would have to develop viraemia and pass infection on to other pigs. This would depend on proximity to other pigs, and the degree of contact the pig-keeper has with other herds. Infection in a single backyard fattener pig would quite likely not be transmitted further, so the outbreak would be a "dead end".

Given the above, MAF assesses that the risk of the PRRS virus entering New Zealand as extremely low and advice to date indicates the measures being proposed should effectively manage the risks. We now seek stakeholder feedback on the four draft Import Health Standards for processed and unprocessed pig meat and pig meat products issued for 90 days public consultation on 12 November 2007.

Ready-to-cook cuts

The four draft IHSs stipulate that ready-to-cook cuts are the only form of pork that could be imported without further cooking from countries with PRRS. The ready-to-cook cuts would be packaged either for direct retail sale or for use in food service operations, that are unlikely to generate trimming waste prior to cooking, and have all major peripheral lymph nodes removed:

Examples of ready-to-cook cuts of pig meat would include: rump steaks, topside roasts and schnitzels, eye of silverside roasts, knuckle leg steaks, fillets, butterfly steaks, medallions.