Keywords: meat inspection, ante-mortem inspection, post-mortem inspection, low-capacity slaughterhouse, livestock units, food of animal origin, reindeer, farmed game

Proposed Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Decree amending Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Decree on meat inspection (590/2014)

Reindeer

Pursuant to Article 12(1)(c) of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/624, Finland would introduce the possibility to allow the staff of reindeer slaughterhouses to carry out inspection tasks (of the abdominal viscera, excluding liver and kidneys; genital organs; and udder of reindeer) after receiving training appropriate to the task.

Pursuant to Article 12(1)(b) of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/624, Finland would introduce the possibility to allow the slaughter of stray reindeer without a prior ante-mortem inspection in individual cases between 1 May and 30 September.

Farmed game

Pursuant to Article 6(5) of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/624, Finland would introduce the possibility to allow the ante-mortem inspection of farmed game a up to 28 days before slaughter under the conditions laid down in the above article.

Low-capacity slaughterhouses

Pursuant to Article 7(1)(b) of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/624 and Article 13(2) of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/627, Finland would introduce the possibility to increase the annual maximum slaughtering quantity of individual low-capacity slaughterhouses.

Under the proposed decree, the Finnish Food Safety Authority could, upon application, increase the annual maximum slaughtering quantity of individual low-capacity slaughterhouses to a maximum of 3 000 livestock units of ungulates or 200 000 poultry. Even after the increases, the maximum slaughtering quantity of low-capacity slaughterhouses would still make up less than 5 % of the total slaughtered volume in Finland, as stipulated by the Commission Regulations.