A new document landed on the buyer's desk on 16 September 2026: the Turkish Food Codex Communiqué on Meat, Prepared Meat Mixtures and Meat Products, number 2026/15. The Turkish meat products code 2026 edition sets numerical thresholds for sucuk, ham, pastırma and emulsified products, and those thresholds are concrete enough to write into a specification. Below are only the values verified in Article 9 of the code and what a buyer does with them.
What did the code published on 16 September 2026 put on the buyer's desk?
Communiqué 2026/15 (yeni sekmede açılır) appeared in issue 33372 of Türkiye's Official Gazette and entered into force on publication. Existing businesses have until 31 March 2027 to comply. Article 25 repealed the earlier communiqué 2018/52 (yeni sekmede açılır) of 29 January 2019; the rule in that older text requiring a core temperature of at least 72 °C in cooking (Article 18/ç) was the basis for producers' heat-treatment records.
What is new for a buyer is this: the numerical definition of product classes now sits in one text, and a specification can be written by reference to it. The phrase "good-quality sucuk" gives way to the line "total meat protein at least 15 percent, pH at most 5.4".
Which products does the 2026/15 Meat Products Code cover, and when is it mandatory?
The code covers meat, prepared meat mixtures and meat products; the four groups this article deals with are sucuk, ham, pastırma and emulsified meat products, the last of which includes salami and sausage. Kavurma has thresholds too: moisture at most 45 percent, salt at most 3 percent, fat at most 30 percent.
The code contains no separate product definition or numerical criteria under the name "smoked meat". A buyer purchasing smoked roast or smoked salami assesses those products within the group they belong to; the word smoked creates no threshold of its own. The timetable is clear: in force from publication, with compliance for existing businesses by 31 March 2027.
How are 15 percent meat protein and pH 5.4 for sucuk written into a specification?
For fermented sucuk Article 9 gives four numbers: total meat protein at least 15 percent, collagen at most 20 percent, moisture-to-protein ratio below 2.6, pH at most 5.4. The specification line is built like this:
- Product: fermented beef sucuk, coil, 1000 g (example: Altın Dana Fermented Finger Sucuk 1000 g)
- Total meat protein: ≥ 15% (Communiqué 2026/15, Article 9)
- Collagen: ≤ 20%
- Moisture/protein: < 2.6
- pH: ≤ 5.4
- Smoking: none (Article 9/14)
- Verification: analysis report from an accredited laboratory per batch
The pH value is the measure of fermentation; the 5.4 limit shows that acidification is complete, and in a narrow finger sucuk the high surface-to-volume ratio lets maturation progress more evenly. The moisture-to-protein ratio is the measure of drying; a lower ratio means a drier, more durable product.
Why do heat-treated sucuk and fermented sucuk have different thresholds?
For heat-treated sucuk the figures are meat protein at least 13 percent, collagen at most 25 percent and pH at most 5.6. All three are looser than for fermented sucuk, because the product is preserved by heat rather than by acid and drying; fermentation is not carried to completion, so pH is higher, and water loss is smaller, so the protein percentage is lower.
For a buyer this means the two products can share a shelf but not a specification line. Where fermented sucuk is bought for the breakfast pan and heat-treated sucuk for use without cooking, two separate lines, two threshold sets and two analysis reports are needed. The kitchen difference between the two is explained in the difference between fermented and heat-treated sucuk.
What do 13 percent protein, 8 percent fat and 3 percent salt mean for beef ham?
Three thresholds apply to ham: total meat protein at least 13 percent, fat at most 8 percent, salt at most 3 percent. For a cured product such as Özlem Beef Ham 1750 g (Log) the first line a buyer looks at is salt: curing is done with salt and the 3 percent ceiling constrains the recipe. The 8 percent fat ceiling puts a number on ham as a lean product class.
In the specification the three figures sit side by side and all three are required in the analysis report. The moist body of ham reduces the need for sauce in a sandwich, which is a kitchen advantage; it is worth knowing, though, that the code sets no separate moisture limit for ham, so an invented moisture line has no place in the specification.
Thresholds for emulsified products such as salami and sausage: the table
| Product group | Meat protein | Collagen | Moisture/protein | Fat/protein or fat | Salt | pH |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fermented sucuk | ≥ 15% | ≤ 20% | < 2.6 | – | – | ≤ 5.4 |
| Heat-treated sucuk | ≥ 13% | ≤ 25% | – | – | – | ≤ 5.6 |
| Ham | ≥ 13% | – | – | fat ≤ 8% | ≤ 3% | – |
| Emulsified meat products (salami, sausage) | ≥ 9% | ≤ 25% | < 6.5 | fat/protein < 3.2 | – | – |
| Pastırma | – | – | moisture ≤ 50% (excluding çemen) | – | – | ≤ 6.0 |
| Kavurma | – | – | moisture ≤ 45% | fat ≤ 30% | ≤ 3% | – |
A dash means the code gives no numerical threshold for that cell; do not fill an empty cell with a guess. Mortella Smoked Italian Salami 1500 g is assessed in the emulsified group: meat protein at least 9 percent, collagen at most 25 percent, moisture-to-protein below 6.5 and fat-to-protein below 3.2. How meat content shapes sausage quality is covered in how meat content determines sausage quality.
Pastırma: 50 percent moisture, 10 percent çemen and the smoking ban
For pastırma the code gives three numbers: moisture at most 50 percent excluding the çemen, pH at most 6.0, çemen at most 10 percent. For a block product such as Altın Dana Selected Cut Pastirma Block 3500 g all three are requested in the analysis report; the çemen share matters in particular, because çemen is both a protective crust and weight, and the 10 percent ceiling guarantees that the weight comes from the meat.
Article 9/14 states that sucuk, pastırma, kavurma and döner may not be smoked. For a buyer that is a label check: a product described as "smoked pastırma" or "smoked sucuk" does not fit the code's definition and cannot enter the specification. For the habit of reading what a label actually says, what consumers have started to look for on labels is a starting point.
How is an analysis report requested from the supplier?
- Write the thresholds for the product group into the specification line by line from the table above, citing the code number.
- Set the reporting frequency: per batch, monthly or twice a year? For a high-volume line, per batch is reasonable.
- Require that the report comes from an accredited laboratory and shows the measured parameter next to the code's limit.
- Have the supplier accept in writing at the quotation stage that an out-of-limit result means rejection of the batch.
- File the reports by product code and batch number; it is the first document an inspector asks for.
The buyer's roadmap to 31 March 2027
Three jobs before the compliance date: rewrite existing specifications to the new thresholds, obtain a written compliance statement and a first analysis report from every supplier, and check labels for smoking claims and product names. With those three done, there are no surprises on the desk on the morning of 1 April 2027.
Send EMKA FOOD your request for current specifications and analysis reports for fermented sucuk, beef ham, smoked Italian salami and block pastırma; collect the documents in the same file as the samples.
