India’s food safety agency Food Safety and Standards Authority of India notified the draft norms for regulating microbes in meat and meat products which are imported.
The existing norms covered the category “Microbiological requirements of food products” and the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India now wants to include what are called “Hygiene Indicator Organisms” with specifications on the maximum amount of bacteria that can be present, along with other criteria which include minimum number of samples to be presented for testing, the level above which a lot has to be rejected, the units to be used for analyses, as also definitions of what constitute meat and meat products, reports NDTV.
The regulation will apply to various categories of meat such as fresh meat, chilled and frozen meat, cured of pickled meat, dried meat, cooked or semi-cooked meat as also canned meat.
Perumal Karthikeyan, assistant director for regulations and Codex Alimentarius at the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India told GlobalMeatNews that his department had tried to align these standards to international practices. He added that the government was getting ready to devise even stricter regulations in the future.
Last updated: December 26th, 2025
