How to read a pork specification sheet

A pork specification sheet is the technical description of the goods a price refers to — cut, bone and rind, weight band, temperature, shelf life, packing, origin and tariff code. It defines conforming goods for the contract: disputes over yield, shelf life or reclassification are settled against the spec, not the order confirmation.

Why the spec sheet is the contract reference

An order confirmation carries price, quantity and delivery terms, but rarely describes the product precisely enough to test conformity. The spec sheet does, which is why it should be cited in the purchase order by version number and date.

EU law points the same way. Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 makes a supplier responsible for giving its business customer enough information to meet that customer's own duty to ensure food information is present and accurate (Article 8(8), read with Article 8(2)). Article 3 of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 931/2011 requires an accurate description of the food, its volume or quantity, the dispatching and receiving operators, a lot, batch or consignment reference and the date of dispatch to be available for every consignment of food of animal origin — and the spec sheet is normally where that description is fixed.

Keep it separate from the Incoterm. The ICC Incoterms 2020 rules allocate delivery point, cost and risk between seller and buyer; they say nothing about whether the goods conform to specification.

Reading the fields

Product code and cut description

The supplier's product code is an internal key. The cut description is the commercial commitment. Trade names travel badly — "shoulder", "collar" and "butt" mean different things in different markets. A cut description is only testable if it says where the cut starts and stops: which vertebra, rib or joint. Where a sheet says only "shoulder", ask for that boundary in writing.

Bone and rind status

Bone-in or boneless, rind-on or rindless, and the trim level (fat cover, membrane, gland removal) drive yield, and so the real price per usable kilo. They also drive classification: HS heading 0203 separates hams, shoulders and cuts thereof with bone in (0203.12 fresh or chilled, 0203.22 frozen) from other cuts (0203.19 and 0203.29).

Weight range and tolerance

A band such as "4–6 kg per piece" is a conformance limit, not a guideline. Ask whether the tolerance applies per piece, per carton or to the consignment average — the three give very different outcomes.

Where the sheet cites carcase classification, Annex IV, Part B of Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013 grades carcases by estimated lean meat as a percentage of carcase weight: S (60 or more), E (55 or more but less than 60), U (50 or more but less than 55), R (45 or more but less than 50), O (40 or more but less than 45) and P (less than 40). The same part fixes the reference presentation — bled and eviscerated, without tongue, bristles, hooves, genital organs, flare fat, kidneys and diaphragm — which is what makes carcase weights comparable between plants.

Temperature and shelf life

Under Annex III, Section I of Regulation (EC) No 853/2004, meat must be chilled to not more than 7 °C throughout the meat (3 °C for offal) and held there in storage and transport; the same temperatures apply during cutting and boning, maintained by an ambient temperature of not more than 12 °C or an equivalent system. Commission Regulation (EU) 2017/1981 later set conditions under which carcases may be transported before the core reaches 7 °C.

For frozen product, Council Directive 89/108/EEC defines quick-frozen foodstuffs as held at −18 °C or lower at all points, with brief upward fluctuations of no more than 3 °C permitted during transport. A sheet that says "frozen" without a temperature has specified nothing testable.

Shelf life is set by the operator, not by a fixed legal number. Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 requires a "use by" date for foods highly perishable from a microbiological point of view (Article 24), and prepacked frozen meat must also carry a date of freezing, preceded by "Frozen on …" and given as day, month and year in uncoded form (Annex III point 6, Annex X point 3). Check whether it runs from production, packing or dispatch, and at what temperature.

Packing

Vacuum, skin, MAP or bulk; carton- or block-frozen; net and gross weight; pieces per carton; cartons per pallet and pallet configuration. These drive container utilisation, cold-store handling and your declared weights.

Tariff code, origin and plant identification

The HS code on a spec sheet is the seller's classification opinion; the declaration in the importing country is the importer's legal responsibility. The WCO edition in force is HS 2022, and HS 2028 enters into force on 1 January 2028. Within the EU, the Combined Nomenclature adds two further digits and defines cuts legally: Additional Note 2(A) to Chapter 2 defines "loins" for subheadings 0203 19 13 and 0203 29 13; bellies (streaky) sit at 0203 19 15 and 0203 29 15, where the cut must retain rind and subcutaneous fat. A customs "loin" is not automatically a commercial loin.

For fresh, chilled and frozen pork, Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 1337/2013, applicable since 1 April 2015, requires "Reared in" and "Slaughtered in" indications. For swine slaughtered older than six months, "Reared in" is the country of the last rearing period of at least four months. "Origin: (country)" may replace both only where the operator proves to the competent authority that the animal was born, reared and slaughtered in one country.

The identification mark under Annex II, Section I of Regulation (EC) No 853/2004 is oval and shows the country of the establishment — in full or as a two-letter code — with its approval number; marks applied in the EU also carry an abbreviation of European Union in an official language — EC, EU, EL, UE, EE, AE, ES or EÚ. The superseded European Community abbreviations may still appear on product marked earlier: Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/1141 permits those only until 31 December 2028, so a mark reading UE or ES on a carton produced today is the compliant one. Approval number plus lot code links a carton to slaughter and cutting records.

What this means for your order

On that last point: the Salmonella criterion for pig carcases in Regulation (EC) No 2073/2005 is a process hygiene criterion applied after dressing but before chilling, expressed as a sampling plan of 50 samples with up to three positives tolerated. It is not a per-consignment acceptance test, and quoting it as one produces arguments no laboratory can resolve.