Implementation of Visual-Only Swine Inspection in the European Union: Challenges, Opportunities, and Lessons Learned

Abstract

Consumption of contaminated meat and poultry products is a major source of foodborne illness in the United States and globally. Meat inspection procedures, established more than 100 years ago to detect prevailing food safety issues of the time and largely harmonized around the world, do not effectively detect modern hazards and may inadvertently increase food safety risks by spreading contamination across carcasses. Visual-only inspection (VOI) is a significantly different, modernized meat inspection system that is data driven and minimizes physical manipulation of the carcass during inspection. It was developed based on scientific evidence and risk assessment and aims to better control current food safety hazards. In 2014, the European Union (EU) became the first supranational government in the world to require VOI for all swine herds slaughtered in member states that met certain epidemiologic and animal rearing conditions. Here, we review the implementation of this new inspection system with the goal of informing similar modernization efforts in other countries and for other commodities beyond pork. This article reports the results of a literature review and interviews conducted with nine experts in 2018 on the implementation of the EU’s 2014 VOI regulation. Challenges, opportunities, and lessons learned about the implementation of the regulation are described for audiences interested in adapting inspection procedures to prevent and detect modern food safety hazards. Overall, implementation of VOI varies within and across member states, and among slaughterhouses of different sizes. This variation is due to disease risk patterns, supply chain conditions, and trade barriers. Before transitioning to a similar risk-based meat inspection system, other countries should consider the following: science-based research agendas to identify what food chain information best predicts herd health and foodborne hazards, regulatory system design that accurately reflects local hazards, and development of targeted VOI educational materials.