Animal Welfare and Meat Processing

Who is this course designed for?

The course has been designed for delegates at all levels who have interest in the meat industry and supply chain. The course covers red meat processing from leaving the farm, through slaughterhouse operations carcass handling and butchery, to maturation and secondary processing.  It considers the requirements for establishing and maintaining an effectively managed and efficient meat processing operation, and it considers the elements of meat processing and the influence that staff and process control can have on the quality of product, efficiencies and yield.

Benefits:

As a result of the course, participants will be able to:

• Appraise the key factors affecting animal welfare for red meat processing from farm gate to slaughter and evaluate impact on product quality and yield.
• Analyse slaughtering and deboning operations to assess management requirements and the identification of key performance indicators and their control in the context of overall process control.
• Evaluate food quality and safety requirements in the context of legislation, industry codes of practice and customer requirements for the purpose of establishing process management requirements which will ensure the production of high quality and safe products.
• Evaluate slaughtering, butchery and processing techniques in context with processing requirements and business objectives concerning yield maximisation, giveaway and cost control.

Course content:

Principles of animal welfare, the ethical frameworks that inform evaluations about animal welfare, the scientific assessment of an animal’s welfare status and approaches that might be taken to improve welfare. 

Pre-slaughter animal management: visual assessment and grading of animals; transport considerations; lairage design and animal management; welfare considerations; pre-mortem factors affecting meat quality (age, stress management, injury, feeding); production records; traceability; legal requirements.

Slaughterhouse operations: slaughtering, skinning and evisceration (cattle, sheep and pigs); microbiological factors affecting quality and safety; post-mortem glycolysis; product defects (cold shortening, DFD, PSE meat); FSA inspection techniques and practices; red and green offal process and management; edible co products and animal by-products; quality improvement; cost control and reduction.

Carcass and primal butchery: carcass splitting; carcass chilling and effects on quality; maturation; cutting and primal production; intermediate packaging and chilled storage.

Prices:        £650                        Dates: 11th - 13th September 2024

For Further information on the course content please contact:

Dr Karim Farag
Senior Lecturer in Livestock Health and Welfare
kfarag@harper-adams.ac.uk

To enrol please confirm name of attendee and full billing details to scco@harper-adams.ac.uk stating "Animal Welfare & Meat Processing"