Poultry meat marketing

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The Poultrymeat Marketing Standards regulate standards throughout the European Union (EU) for the marketing of poultrymeat from chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys and guinea fowl and lay down rules for quality, weight, packaging and labelling, water content and storage.

Special marketing terms

The regulations specify the standards that must be met on farms for the production of alternative system poultry meat - known as Special Marketing Terms (SMTs) in the UK.

The five terms that are permitted in the regulations are:

‘fed with ......% of.......’; (For example “Corn Fed”)
‘extensive indoor’ (or ‘Barn reared’);
‘free Range’;
‘traditional free range’;
‘free range - total freedom’.

There are also certain exemptions and derogations from the Regulations, and the provisions relating to SMTs do not apply to:

organic production
poultrymeat intended for export to third countries (outside the EU)
poultrymeat supplied by producers who annually rear fewer than 10,000 birds and where the meat:
- comes from poultry slaughtered on the producer’s farm; and
- is supplied to:
  - the final consumer; or
  - a local retail establishment directly supplying such meat to the final consumer as fresh meat

Delayed evisceration poultry

Producers of poultry marketed under an SMT must be inspected and registered by the Department, unless their entire annual production is solely marketed within the above exemptions.

All slaughterhouses that market poultrymeat under an SMT must also apply to be registered by the Department.

Specified records are required to be kept by both SMT producers and slaughterhouses and also by hatcheries and feedmills supplying certain types of SMT producers.