Making mince to sell

Some butchers and farm shops mince their own beef to sell. Mince has rules of its own, for the machine, the premises and the label. Some of them depend on who the mince is sold to.

The mincer and ready-to-eat food

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has guidance on E. coli O157 for every business that handles both raw meat and ready-to-eat food. Retailers are among them.

It says complex equipment such as mincers, slicers and vacuum packers shouldn't be used for both raw and ready-to-eat food in a normal business day. To switch a machine from raw to ready-to-eat food, it has to be taken apart, and every surface cleaned and disinfected.

The business must keep work areas, surfaces and equipment for raw and ready-to-eat food adequately separate. The guidance names separate rooms, or separate areas, each with their own staff, utensils and equipment. Cleaning and disinfecting a shared area between uses is allowed where that is not possible, and it carries the most risk.

The guidance says gloves are not a substitute for washing hands. Staff who wear gloves must wash their hands each time they change or remove them.

Selling over the counter, or to other businesses

In food law, retail means handling or processing food, and storing it, at the point of sale or delivery to the final consumer. So a butcher mincing beef to sell to its own customers usually counts as a retailer.

The extra hygiene rules for meat mostly leave out a butcher selling to its own customers. Supplying mince to another business brings them in. They stay out only when the mince goes to other retailers alone, and that supply is marginal, localised and restricted.

In England and Wales, a minced meat establishment must be approved by its council before it trades.

Rules for approved premises

For premises approved to make mince, the law sets out what can go into it. The meat must come from skeletal muscle, with the fat attached to it. It must not come from scrap trimmings, other than whole muscle cuttings, or from meat with bone fragments or skin in it.

Mince made from chilled beef has to be made within six days of slaughter. For boned, vacuum-packed beef, the limit is 15 days.

Meat used for mincing must be at 7°C or below. Straight after mincing, the mince must be wrapped or packed, then chilled to 2°C or below inside, or frozen to minus 18°C or below.

The premises need facilities to disinfect tools with hot water at no less than 82°C, or another system that works as well.

The label

The Rural Payments Agency's beef labelling rules cover mince containing less than 1% salt.

Defra says mince made from animals reared in different countries must carry a reference code, the country where the mincing took place and the country of slaughter. It must also name every country where the animals lived from birth to slaughter, if different from the country of mincing.

To find meat supply, see meatsuppliers.uk.

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