Additional guarantees for Salmonella in imported defined animal-derived foods were agreed on for Finland when it was admitted to the European Community. The aim of this project was to evaluate the impact of these AGs on the prevalence of Salmonella in the Finnish beef supply and the adequacy of their scope.
The extension of AGs to all imported fresh beef would have reduced the Salmonella prevalence of beef imports from three- to fourfold, whereas expanding the implementation of AGs to all imports of fresh beef, beef preparations, and beef products would have resulted in a sixfold decrease.
If current AGs targeting fresh beef intended to be sold as fresh or to be processed by the Finnish industry with processes not achieving 70 C were not implemented, the 95% credible interval of Salmonella prevalence in the Finnish beef supply would be 0.2 to 1.3% instead of 0.1 to 1.2%. However, if the prevalence in the exporting countries were to rise or the main import countries and/or magnitudes were to change, AGs would be of greater importance.