What is the slaughterhouse stamp?

The slaughterhouse stamp is a mark of inspection and quality placed on meat and poultry fit for human consumption after being examined, approved, and certified by relevant food safety authorities and certified meat inspectors. This stamp is a round mark made of highly safe and non-toxic ink, usually purple, known as the slaughterhouse stamp.

Benefits of having the slaughterhouse stamp on meat

The role of the slaughterhouse is to ensure the safety of meat and food, including aspects such as animal welfare, resistance to microbial contaminants, and the prevention of foodborne and animal-origin diseases. Meat inspection is a critical tool for controlling animal diseases and ensuring public health. Slaughterhouses can serve as centers for monitoring livestock diseases by enforcing meat inspection laws to prevent diseased meat from reaching consumers and ensuring the proper handling and storage of meat under sanitary conditions.

What is the importance of the slaughtering process?

  • Ensuring consumers receive only healthy products for human consumption.
  • Ensuring the proper processing of secondary products to avoid direct health risks.
  • Alerting to the presence of contagious diseases among livestock on farms.

Slaughterhouse cleanliness and management

The primary goal is to protect public health through the fair, coordinated, and effective implementation of sanitation and inspection regulations, particularly public health and municipal service laws, and related legislation, such as slaughterhouse and food business regulations. Management is responsible for supervising and inspecting the cleanliness of meat in slaughterhouses, distributing qualified and specialized employees in licensed slaughterhouses to monitor their operation and ensure good hygiene practices. Additionally, close communication with external regulatory authorities is maintained, and strategies and practices related to slaughterhouse management and hygiene are considered to improve service quality.

The main purpose of meat inspection

Among the public health objectives of meat inspection is the prevention and detection of risks related to public health, such as foodborne pathogens or chemical contaminants in meat. Inspection techniques (visual, physical, and through incisions) are used to search for physical defects such as bruises, cuts, or fractures in bones.

What are the advantages of meat inspection?

Meat inspectors classify meat as healthy (free from disease), sound (clean and healthy), fit for consumption (unadulterated), and correctly labeled (as indicated). Diseased or contaminated meat is detected and disposed of, reducing microbiological contamination of meat.

What is a post-mortem meat inspection?

Post-mortem inspection includes the examination of carcasses and meat parts used in human food. This inspection is conducted after the pre-slaughter examination and after the slaughter of animals, hence the term "post-mortem," meaning "after death."

What are the principles of post-mortem inspection?

The key decisions in post-mortem examination are the approval for human consumption. The principles of post-mortem inspection include visual, physical, incisional, and laboratory testing to ensure the health and safety of meat products. These characteristics follow official grade standards developed and maintained by the Agricultural Marketing Service, a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Beef can be classified in two ways: quality grades based on tenderness, juiciness, and flavor; and yield grades for the amount of lean, boneless meat suitable for marketing as a carcass.

The seal on beef carcasses is simply its classification or safety seal, indicating that it has been inspected and deemed suitable for human processing.

Cattle inspection

1- Receipt of live cattle

Cattle are sent to the slaughterhouse and settle in a waiting pen before being sent to a waiting pen the day before slaughter.

2- Pre-slaughter inspection

All cattle are inspected by the pre-slaughter inspection unit under the slaughter department (veterinary). Suspected or sick cattle are isolated for slaughter.

3- Neck cutting

A cut is made in the neck to sever a group of blood vessels, including the jugular veins. The animal bleeds slowly over a bleeding trough.

4- Head, legs, and tail removal

The head, forelegs, and tail are removed from the carcass. The tail and forelegs are placed in plastic bags to prevent contamination of the carcass. The head is hung for inspection. The hide is restricted and pulled from the side by a hide puller.

5- Chest meat opening and viscera removal

The chest meat is cut with an electric saw. Offal is extracted and dropped onto a large, moving offal table.

6- Carcass splitting

The carcass is split longitudinally by an electric saw along the vertebral column into halves.

7- Carcass and offal inspection

The carcass and offal are inspected by health inspectors. Only meat and offal suitable for human consumption pass inspection, and meat/offal/parts unsuitable for human consumption are discarded.

8- Sealing

Carcasses and offal that have been inspected and deemed suitable for human consumption are officially sealed.

9- Carcass rinsing and offal cleaning

The carcass is then rinsed in a rinse room, and offal is cleaned in an offal washroom.

10- Quartering

Each side of beef is quartered between the fifth and sixth ribs by a mechanical saw in the quartering area.

11- Meat delivery

Beef quarters, offal, and other parts are sent to the meat delivery point and are collected and delivered by meat delivery vehicles to individual retail outlets.

Meat inspection is a highly comprehensive process where all animals destined for human consumption undergo inspection before and after slaughter, with the goal of ensuring the safety of meat and placing the slaughterhouse stamp on meat fit for human consumption.

Customer Awareness Team