Thirteen people from 10 different slaughterhouses have participated, from 11 to 14 July 2023, on a training course on Beef carcass classification within the EU-funded Twinning Project “Support the establishment of a carcass classification system in line with the EU Common Agricultural Policy”. These 10 slaughterhouses represent around 39% of beef production in Serbia.
The aim of the Twinning Project is to help the Serbian administration to implement the carcass classification system, in line with the European Union Regulations, thus in the upcoming months rulebooks will be published in the Serbian official gazette and this system will be compulsory in the slaughterhouses that exceed a certain threshold.
As the process of beef carcass classification is a visual method, it is necessary to ensure that the Union Scale is applied in a consistent way in all Member States. The overall objective of the Training Program was to provide the slaughterhouse staff with the opportunity to learn about the standards applied in the European Union.
The training module consisted of a theoretical and a practical phase developed on a minimum of 40 randomly selected carcasses, that lasted for fifteen hours.
This course addressed following topics: beef carcass classification and legal background, general conditions and the application of the carcass classification, price reporting system in EU, carcass classification legal framework in Serbia, minimum requirements of classification, presentation, weighing and identification of carcasses.
To reach this aim, the training course was focused on a practical exercise, where participants were called to classify some carcasses, working both in groups and individually. The exercises were carried out at a slaughterhouse and beef processing plant.
This Training Program has been carried out by members of Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Water Management and Faculty of Novi Sad that were previously trained in previous project activities, and was supervised by Latvian experts with extensive experience in the matter.
With this activity, Serbia takes another step towards the goal of joining the EU, and the MAFWM already has sufficient tools to organize such courses autonomously in the future.