Under Retained EU Regulation 853/2004, Annex III, Section I, Chapter VII paragraphs 1 to 3 Food Standards Scotland (FSS) may authorise slaughterhouses to transport warm meat from domestic ungulates.
An amendment to the exemption criteria provided at point 3 of Chapter VII applied as of 21 November 2017. The amendment introduces changes which can be adopted without any increased risk to public health and provides more flexible approaches, based on surface and air temperatures, for the conditions of the transport of fresh meat without deviating from the principle that such meat should be chilled to 7°C by a continuous decrease of temperature.
A continuous decrease in temperature, as already mandatory, requires that part of the body heat should be removed prior to long distance transport. Setting a core temperature to which carcases and larger cuts must be chilled before transport is a way of ensuring a significant proportion of body heat is removed.
The EU Commission has also clarified the concept of specific products as being products where chilling may not necessarily contribute to the hygienic, and technically most appropriate, processing of the product, for example, foie gras.
Food business operators wishing to transport above temperature meat must seek permission from Food Standards Scotland.