FSA seeks spotters to help meat inspection

The Food Standards Agency has said it is seeking a contractor to carry out research on the use of spotters to help official meat inspection in slaughterhouses.

The research will explore a model where plant staff are acting as spotters to identify and flag up defects on carcases and offal.

This will happen before the official meat inspection is carried out by Official Veterinarians or Meat Hygiene Inspectors.

The study aims to gather evidence to reform meat inspection to better target public health, animal health and animal welfare conditions.

The objective of the FSA’s review of meat controls is to improve public health, animal health and animal welfare protection by adopting a more risk- and evidence-based approach to meat production. More about the review of meat controls can be found via the link below.


The project has gone out to tender via the social science research framework, and the deadline for submitting tenders is Friday 24 January 2014. Only those suppliers registered in the framework can apply.