NEW regulations on poultry products aimed at stopping false advertising and improving product quality will take effect in the coming months, officials at the Department of Agriculture have confirmed.
The guidelines for eggs and poultry meat are part of the EU harmonisation effort and are “absolutely, completely in line with European Union Standards,” said Senior Animal Husbandry Officer Kyriacos Charalambous yesterday.
From August 1, eggs will be classified according to freshness, “A” for fresh eggs, “B” for eggs preserved by refrigeration or other means and “C” for eggs that are not intended for the retail market.
They will also be separated into four different weight categories from extra large to small. Cracked or dirty eggs will be discarded.
The new legislation will ban certain terms on packaging, such as “village”, “light”, “healthy”, “nutritious” or “low cholesterol”.
Licensed plants will, however, be able to market eggs under one of five approved designations. These are “extra fresh”, if the date of production is stamped on the package; “free range” if the eggs come from certified “free range” birds; “extensive indoors” if the egg-laying animals were raised in a large, enclosed area; “outdoors” if they were raised in a completely open, unsheltered environment; and finally “litter” or “floor eggs” which are not machine incubated, but laid naturally on wood shavings.
Along similar lines, poultry meat regulations will come into force on October 1 and will apply to unprocessed meat from chickens, ducks, turkeys, geese and guinea fowl.
Again, meat from these birds will be classified into two categories, which must be listed on the label: “grade A”, which is destined for the retail market, and “grade B”, which will be cut up. The new standards call for a sell-by date on the package and a designation as “fresh”, “frozen” or “quick-freeze”, according to how the meat is stored.
Producers will be allowed to label four special types of meat: “free range”, “outdoor”, “extensive indoors” and another designation for animals raised on a special diet.
Charalambous said yesterday that he had had several visits from smaller producers worried about implementing the changes, but he remained optimistic that within a few months, the whole industry should be up to standard.
The Animal Husbandry Officer said the agriculture department would “be a little bit flexible in the beginning with enforcement if they are trying to implement the rules”.
But, he warned that, “if somebody is not trying to do anything, then no mercy”.
“By the end of 2002, we must enforce these regulations by any means,” he said in reference to the EU accession target date.
“I have 32 years of experience in this sector and I know everybody by name and I feel that they will do it,” he added.
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