M1 Legislation Flashcards
Clarification of the term ‘inspector’
- Official Assessor (OA): A warranted individual appointed under the APA 1999
- Post Mortem Examiner: Everyone else i.e Company Meat Inspectors
Asure operates under 3 sets of legislation
- Animal Products Act 1999 (APA)
- State Owned Enterprises (SOE) Act 1986
- Health and Safety in Employment Act 2015
What is the APA?
APA is the principle legislation governing the NZ meat industry
What are the two objects of the APA?
- Minimise/manage risks to human or animal health… so all animal product is fit for intended purpose
- Maintain access to export markets by complying with OMAR and other similar regulations
Who is the MPI?
MPI obtains its authority from Govt to issue specs and reqs to the Meat industry
List 2 things that they (MPI) do to ensure New Zealand can export meat
- Negotiate requirements with overseas governments
- Provide relevant processing specs to industry and AQ
- Audit meat companies to ensure overseas market requirements (OMARS) are met
What are the three functions of MPI VS?
- Verify meat companies’ compliance to Risk Management Programme (RMP)
- Take action on animal welfare
- Provide export certification to product
What is the AsureQuality and MPI VS relationship?
AQ is obligated to report uncorrected non-compliances to the MPI VS and if required advise on resolutions
AQ also delivers MPI-endorsed training for OA’s and CMI’s
What are the regulatory powers of an OA?
- Inspect carcasses and viscera
- Gather samples for Dx
- Incise to investigate (or confirm Dx)
- Condemn a carcass, viscera or head
- Interrupt operations
- Retain product
- Report non-compliance
What are the obligations of an OA?
Section 93(3) of the Act: OA’s are obliged to follow instructions in notices issued by the Director-General and to report ALL non-compliance, report any animal welfare issues, report any harrassment issues
4 reasons an OA may gather a sample?
- Dx parasitic diseases
- Dx bacterial diseases (tuberculosis)
- Dx residues (herbicides/pesticides)
- Diseased product of idiopathic origin
What are notices?
Notices are secondary legislation published in the form of notices
What are industry standards?
Industry standards are not legal documents, however they support the Notices
Industry Standards describe operational requirements for industry but are being slowly phased out and replaced by Operational Codes
What are operational codes (codes of practice)?
Codes of practice are based on legislation so all requirements described ‘shall’ or ‘must’ are required to be followed
What is manual 16?
Manual 16 is replaced with “Operational Code Red Meat Post-mortem Examination COP 6, 7 and 8”
COP6 = Presentation requirements
COP7 = Inspection procedures
COP8 = Dispositions (judgements)
State the main purposes of the MPI
- Food safety/Fit for purpose
- Develop specs, policies, regulations for industry
- Audit NZ meat industry
- Training
- Maintain market access
Name one method by which MPI insures the NZ government that meat companies are compliant with requirements?
They carry out audits
What is the function of a meat inspector?
To inspect animal products and to ensure that they are fit for their intended purpose
Describe the purpose of a RMP
An RMP sets out how an operator will identify and control, manage, eliminate or minimise food safety hazards and other risk factors in relation to processing. All animal products traded and used must be ‘fit for intended purpose’ and meet the appropriate New Zealand animal product legislation.
3 examples of a RMP
- HACCP
- ZFT
- Vermin control
What is a technical directive?
A directive regarding any changes to an OMAR by MPI
What is SPCS?
Statistical Process Control System (SPCS) is an AQ system for checking the procedural and decision making accuracy of its meat inspectors.
- Procedure check
- Decisions check
And all results are added to a statistical database called Benchmark
