The Pig Carcase Grading Scheme: dress and grade carcases

Once you register with the Pig Carcase Grading Scheme, you must follow the rules that describe how to:

You must dress pig carcases according to either the EU or the UK dressing specification. You cannot use your own dressing specification.

Before weighing the carcase, you must remove the:

In the UK, abattoirs are allowed to present pig carcases according to the ‘UK specification’. This means dressing carcases the same as EU specification, but leaving the following parts in:

You can leave the tongue in or take it out.

The removal of the sticking wound is required for health and hygiene reasons to remove the contamination caused during the sticking process, as set out in (EU) 2019/627, Article 45 point (D).   The removal of the sticking wound must be undertaken ensuring that associated skin, fat and flesh that is not part of the contaminated area remains attached to the carcase.

You must record carcase weights as they appear on the actual scale display. You must not round the weight up or down.

You must weigh the dressed carcase for its warm weight. Wherever possible, you must do this no more than 45 minutes after the pig has been stuck.

The table below shows the adjustments (also known as coefficients) that you must make to the weight displayed on the scale to arrive at a standardised “warm” weight when the presentation of the carcase differs from the standard specification set out in retained EU legislation.

To calculate the cold weight, deduct 2% from the warm weight. Any deductions from the table above must be applied before the 2% is taken.

Example: A carcase with kidneys, flare fat, diaphragm and tongue in has a scale weight of 65kg. 1.4kg is first deducted per the table above to reach a standardised “warm” weight of 63.6kg. 2% is then deducted, for a cold weight of 62.3kg (rounded to 0.1kg).