How Does the National Pork Reserve Work?

The commerce departments of the relevant provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government, and cities under separate state planning shall support and cooperate with the management of the central reserve meat, and recommend on the basis of merit the enterprises undertaking storage of central reserve meat, storage warehouses, live livestock reserve base farms, and processing enterprises. The Reserve Commodity Management Center is entrusted by the Ministry of Commerce to handle the daily management and specific operations of the central reserve meat's warehousing, in-storage, and out-of-storage.

1. Classified Management

The national reserve pork is managed as a flowing stock, including both live pigs and frozen fresh meat.

The state has very strict requirements for the production bases of reserve live pigs. The government will subsidize these bases. The financial appropriation for 10,000 reserve pigs reaches 300,000 yuan. Therefore, once the government needs to call up the reserve meat, the bases must provide the rated quantity.

If all were done by putting live pigs on the market, it would be very difficult to operate, because the number of live pigs in the bases weighing a full 60 kg may be insufficient. At this time, frozen fresh pork must be used instead. Therefore, in addition to live pig reserves, there are also some central reserve meat cold storage warehouses.

At the central reserve meat cold storage warehouse at -18°C, the shelf life of stored pork is 6 months. However, reserve frozen meat is not meat that has been frozen for 6 months, but rather flowing frozen fresh meat that is constantly replaced during the processes of stocking and sales. The pork now bought in all major supermarkets is this kind of frozen fresh meat.

2. Production Management

Production plants undertaking the processing of national reserve meat must have live pig receiving, quarantine inspection, and pre-slaughter facilities matching the production scale; have isolation pens for diseased livestock and emergency slaughter rooms and their corresponding facilities; the slaughter workshop must be divided into clean, semi-clean, and non-clean areas, have complete water supply and drainage conditions, and the production process must not cross or wind back; the entire slaughter and processing time from electric stunning and bloodletting of live pigs to finished white-strip meat must not exceed 45 minutes.

Production plants processing cut frozen lean pork must have a dedicated cutting workshop that meets national standards.

The area of the pre-cooling room, the allocation of cold air fans, and the layout of overhead rails should meet the pre-cooling requirements for the white-strip meat produced per shift. The freezing capacity should meet the freezing requirements of the slaughtered products; the temperature of the pre-cooling room should be 0°C-5°C, and the walls and doors should adopt heat preservation and insulation measures. The warehouse temperature of the freezing room should be -25°C—-23°C.

3. Storage Management

National reserve meat must be stored in dedicated warehouses and managed by dedicated personnel. Outside each dedicated reserve meat warehouse, a “National Reserve Meat Designated Warehouse” sign must be hung (50 cm long, 30 cm wide). At the same time, responsibility must be assigned to individuals, duties must be clear, systems must be sound, and management must be scientific.

Cold storage warehouses must carry out scientific stacking and rationally use storage capacity. The stacking of meat in the warehouse must meet the requirements of cold storage management standards and achieve “three separations, two hangings, and two reservations” (three separations: stacks separated from walls, from the floor, and from rows of pipes; two hangings: each stack hung with a label, and a thermometer hung in the warehouse; two reservations: reserve aisles and reserve operating space). Each stack must be hung with a label (specification: 35 cm long, 20 cm wide), indicating the number of pieces (boxes), weight, variety, grade, manufacturer, processing date, and warehousing time.

Reserve warehouses must achieve stable warehouse temperature and must maintain it below -18°C. Under normal circumstances, the temperature fluctuation range within a day and night shall not exceed 1°C. During the process of meat entering and leaving the warehouse, the temperature increase range of the warehouse shall not exceed 4°C.

The out-of-storage (renewal) of national reserve meat must be subject to the unified arrangements of the Ministry of Internal Trade. After the designated reserve warehouse for national reserve meat receives the out-of-storage (renewal) notice from the Ministry of Internal Trade, it shall implement it specifically.

4. Quality Management

The quality of the frozen white-strip meat produced by designated production plants for national reserve meat must comply with the national standard GB9959.1-88 [Fresh and Frozen Pork Carcasses with Skin] (with the addition of excluding leaf fat); cut frozen lean pork must comply with Grade 2 of the national standard GB9959.4-88 [Cut Frozen Lean Pork].

Processing plants must have complete quality inspection institutions, implement a quality responsibility system under a chief veterinary doctor, and have a certain number of health inspection personnel who have obtained health inspector qualification certificates and are compatible with the production scale.

Inspection procedures must be complete, inspection methods must comply with the “Trial Procedures for Meat Hygiene Inspection” of the Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Foreign Trade, and Ministry of Commerce and other relevant provisions, and specification grading must be correct.

Processing plants must have inspection facilities compatible with the processed varieties and scale, and complete instruments and equipment; trichinella inspection and meat testing laboratory equipment must comply with relevant provisions.

After meat inspection, the products shall be handled according to the relevant provisions of the “Trial Procedures for Meat Hygiene Inspection”, and corresponding handling facilities and supervision and inspection systems shall be provided.

Inspection personnel must meet the Level 3 or above standards stipulated in the “Professional Technical Grade Standards for Veterinary Hygiene Technology (Quarantine, Inspection, Testing)”.

Cold storage warehouses undertaking national reserve meat tasks must have full-time health inspection personnel to strictly inspect incoming commodities, check the accompanying vehicle quarantine certificate, inspect vehicle hygiene and meat surface hygiene, and test the vehicle temperature and meat temperature. When the central temperature of the meat is higher than -8°C, it must not directly enter the refrigerated warehouse.