In cold transport the number people remember for meat is usually +4 °C, but Turkey's regulation on specific hygiene rules for food of animal origin sets four separate limits by product group: 7 °C for meat of domestic ungulates, 4 °C for poultry, 3 °C for offal and 2 °C for minced meat. All four are product temperatures, not air temperatures, and they have to hold throughout carriage.
| Product | Highest temperature | Article |
|---|---|---|
| Meat of domestic ungulates (carcass and cuts) | 7 °C | 17 |
| Offal of domestic ungulates | 3 °C | 17 |
| Poultry and lagomorph meat | 4 °C | 22 |
| Minced meat | 2 °C, internal | 31 |
| Meat preparations | 4 °C, internal | 31 |
Under Article 17, chilling starts at the slaughterhouse immediately after post-mortem inspection and continues until the whole of the meat is down to 3 °C for offal and 7 °C for other meat. The meat must reach that temperature before carriage and stay there on the road; Article 22 sets the same rule for poultry at 4 °C. This is why the vehicle does not chill, it holds: a batch loaded warm cannot be brought into compliance on the way.
Those four numbers have to hold at every link of producer to store distribution.
The same article has a narrow exception. Where the production of specific products requires it, the Ministry may allow meat to travel before reaching the target temperature, provided the carriage follows rules the Ministry lays down and the meat leaves the slaughterhouse, or the cutting plant on the same site, immediately, on a journey of no more than two hours. For poultry, a similar permission exists only for livers from foie gras production of geese and ducks.
Article 31 requires minced meat to be chilled to an internal temperature of no more than 2 °C and meat preparations to no more than 4 °C, or frozen to -18 °C or below, with those conditions maintained during storage and carriage. Because the requirement is written for internal temperature, a reading taken on the pack surface does not replace it.
In the cutting room the regulation limits the room as well as the product: during cutting, boning and packing the room stays at or below 12 °C, or an alternative system with equivalent effect is used (Articles 15 and 22). Room air and product temperature are two different quantities, and the same holds in a vehicle, where body air and product core do not show the same number.
