Meat safety legislation and its opportunities and hurdles for innovative approaches: A review.

Albert Einstein has been quoted "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them". Innovations are necessary to meet future challenges regarding sustainability, animal welfare, slaughter hygiene, meat safety and quality, not at least for optimal balance between these dimensions. The red meat safety legislation texts from Europe, New Zealand, USA, and global guidelines, were analysed for normative formulations ("how it is or should be done") that may create non-intentional hurdles to innovation and new technology. Detailed descriptions of slaughtering techniques and meat processes may hinder innovative processing from being investigated and implemented. The identified problematic normative phrases typically either conserve conventional technologies or organisation of the work, prescribe solutions where no established method, objective criteria or limits exits, or put forward visions impossible to obtain. The Codex Alimentarius was found to have less normative formulations and more functional demands ("what to achieve") than the national and regional regulations. European, New Zealand's and US' legislation share many similarities and challenges, and they all reflect the prevailing processing methods. Consequences are briefly commented, and alternative objective functional demands suggested. Normative legislation texts provide familiar context easier to understand, but also make legislation voluminous. This review underlines the mutual dependency between risk-based legislation and conditional flexibility, and between functional demands and control activities targeted on measurable objective criteria. The legislation does not have to be either or. Objective normative phrases in legislation can function as a least common multiple if alternative methods are allowed on condition that they fulfil objective criteria. Context and practical advice should mainly come from textbooks, consultants, white papers and in Food Business Operator's own guidelines, among others.

Steps towards operationalizing One Health approaches.

One Health recognizes the health of humans, agriculture, wildlife, and the environment are interrelated. The concept has been embraced by international health and environmental authorities such as WHO, WOAH, FAO, and UNEP, but One Health approaches have been more practiced by researchers than national or international authorities. To identify priorities for operationalizing One Health beyond research contexts, we conducted 41 semi-structured interviews with professionals across One Health sectors (public health, environment, agriculture, wildlife) and institutional contexts, who focus on national-scale and international applications. We identify important challenges, solutions, and priorities for delivering the One Health agenda through government action. Participants said One Health has made progress with motivating stakeholders to attempt One Health approaches, but achieving implementation needs more guidance (action plans for how to leverage or change current government infrastructure to accommodate cross-sector policy and strategic mission planning) and facilitation (behavioral change, dedicated personnel, new training model).