A comparative study into procedures for postmortem inspection for finishing pigs

A postmortem meat inspection system based primarily on visual inspection without palpation or incision was compared with regular meat inspection procedures based on European Community (EC) regulations, which consists of visual inspection, palpation, and incision of organs. Two experiments included 31,682 finishing pigs. Three inspection procedures were followed: visual, i.e., an inspection without manipulation of the carcass; regular, i.e., based on EC regulations; and extra, i.e., based on EC regulations with more time allowed for the inspection. The reproducibility and accuracy of the visual and regular inspection methods were compared with those of the extra inspection. Twelve postmortem abnormalities and four additional findings were compared. The reproducibility of the visual inspection, measured with Cohen's kappa (CK), was poor to fair (CK from 0.14 to 0.64), and the regular inspection also had a poor to fair reproducibility (CK from 0.24 to 0.73). The specificity and sensitivity of the visual and regular inspection methods did not differ significantly for most of the abnormalities and additional findings. The sensitivity, was low (range 0-76%) and the number of false-negative findings was sometimes high. It can be concluded that many abnormalities and additional findings are detected equally well by visual and regular postmortem inspection procedures. It is concluded that since both inspection procedures are far from perfect, risk assessment should be performed.