🍎 Total and ADDED phosphorus in meat and meat products (a withdrawn standard, with no successor)

Food PN-A-82060

Overview

What the standard concerns. The PKN catalogue card describes the scope thus: "A way of determining the content of total phosphorus in meat and meat products (including poultry products) is described, as well as a way of calculating the content of added phosphorus in meat and poultry products. The principle of the method, the reagents and the apparatus are given. Annex A (informative) gives a method for identifying the more important phosphorus compounds". The document runs to 8 pages, published 07-01-1999, TC 93 Meat, Eggs and their Products, ICS 67.120.10.

TWO DIFFERENT THINGS IN ONE STANDARD — and this is the reason why this standard has no replacement. TOTAL phosphorus is a quantity that is MEASURED and several other documents determine it. ADDED phosphorus is not measured at all: it is a quantity that is CALCULATED, because phosphorus occurs in meat naturally and the question is how much of it was put in as phosphates, a technological additive. The calculation requires an assumption as to how much phosphorus meat has "of itself" — and it is precisely that way of calculating which cannot be replaced by a measurement method. The withdrawn standard therefore took away not a technique but a convention of calculation.

Status and chain. The card has the heading "Withdrawn" and the "Date of withdrawal" row: 07-07-2015 (the two places agree — the card is complete, checked 11 September 2026). It has NO "Superseded by" field. Backwards the chain is long and visible on the results page: PN-A-82060:1999 superseded the 1987 edition, that one the 1975 edition, and that one the 1969 edition. Forwards — nothing.

What we looked for as a successor and why none of them is one. A search of the catalogue by SUBJECT (phosphorus in meat and meat products) gives two documents and BOTH ARE WITHDRAWN, moreover on the same day: — PN-ISO 13730:1999 "Meat and meat products -- Determination of total phosphorus content -- Spectrophotometric method", 9 pages, TC 93, ICS 67.120.10 — WITHDRAWN 25-09-2020; — PN-ISO 2294:1999 "Meat and meat products -- Determination of total phosphorus content (Reference method)", implementing ISO 2294:1974 [IDT], 6 pages, TC 93, ICS 67.120.10 — WITHDRAWN 25-09-2020. The scope from the card: "mineralisation of the sample with sulfuric and nitric acid, precipitation of the phosphorus as quinoline phosphomolybdate, drying and weighing of the precipitate", and in clause 10 an alternative method of mineralisation. Both measure TOTAL phosphorus, neither gives the calculation of ADDED phosphorus. Even if they were in force, they would not replace PN-A-82060 in that part for which laboratories most often reach for it. After 25-09-2020 there is in the PN collection no document IN FORCE on phosphorus in meat — neither total nor added.

A standard withdrawn yet used — and we have a figure for it. In our copy of the accreditation scopes database (the accr_methods collection, a copy from production, position as at 11 September 2026) the string "82060" occurs in 50 entries, and "13730" in 5. A note on terminology before the quotations: the entry writes „fosfor ogólny" (total phosphorus) where that is the wording of PN-A-82060 and of the records in the accreditation scopes, and „fosfor całkowity" (total phosphorus) where that is the wording of PN-ISO 13730 and PN-ISO 2294. WE DO NOT CLAIM these are two different quantities — they are two wordings of titles which we do not unify, because we are quoting documents. In languages that have a single word for this, the difference cannot be rendered and need not be. The records show three different subjects of testing derived from this one standard: „Zawartość fosforu ogólnego", „Zawartość fosforu dodanego w przeliczeniu na P₂O₅ (z obliczeń)" and — which is worth noting — „Obecność wielofosforanów" with the reference „PN-A-82060:1999 Załącznik A" [in English: "Content of total phosphorus", "Content of added phosphorus expressed as P₂O₅ (from calculation)", "Presence of polyphosphates", "Annex A"]. The last of these means that a laboratory has accredited a test based on an INFORMATIVE ANNEX of a withdrawn standard; an informative annex is not part of the requirements of a standard even when the standard is in force. One also meets a record joining two documents in one entry: "PN-ISO 2294:1999 | PN-A-82060:1999". These figures are a LOWER BOUND: they come from a query for the string "82060" in the field with the reference document and will not include records with a typing error or references described in words.

What this entry does not contain. We did not have the text of the standard — PKN supplies it for a fee and we did not obtain the preview (checked 11 September 2026). We therefore do not give: the test portion, the manner of mineralisation, the reagents, the measurement wavelength, the form of the calibration curve or — most importantly — the FORMULA for added phosphorus and the natural phosphorus content assumed in the standard. We give solely what stands on the catalogue cards of the three documents and what is visible in the accreditation scopes. WE HAVE ALSO NOT ESTABLISHED AN INVOCATION IN LEGISLATION: the limits for phosphates as food additives belong to Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008, but that act could not be retrieved from this node today — the address "publications.europa.eu/resource/celex/32008R1333" returned code 404, and "eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/PL/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32008R1333" code 202 and a page of 2035 bytes, that is an intermediate page instead of the content (checked 11 September 2026). We therefore assert nothing about the wording of the legislation or about whether it invokes any standard — this is a gap to be closed, not a finding.

Method principle

Phosphorus in a meat product comes from two sources: from the meat itself, where it occurs naturally in tissue compounds, and from phosphates added in production as a technological additive. An analytical measurement always gives the SUM of both — that is, total phosphorus, usually expressed as P₂O₅. Added phosphorus cannot be measured separately, because chemically it does not differ from the natural kind; it is determined by CALCULATION, by subtracting from the measured total content an assumed natural content derived from the protein content of the product under examination. The result of such a calculation therefore depends not only on the quality of the measurement but also on the convention of conversion adopted — and it was precisely that convention which this standard gave. WE GIVE NEITHER THE FORMULA ITSELF NOR THE COEFFICIENTS, because they are in the text of the standard, which we did not have.

Applications

• Control of the content of added phosphates in sausages, canned goods and poultry products
• Checking a producer's declaration that no phosphates are used
• Testing meat products for conformity with a purchaser’s specification (retail chains, tenders)
• Determination of total phosphorus in meat and meat products as a parameter of composition
• Control testing within accreditation scopes in which the standard is invoked despite its withdrawal

Key parameters

Standard

Standard number

PN-A-82060:1999

Title (PL)

Mięso i przetwory mięsne -- Oznaczanie zawartości fosforu

Title (EN)

Meat and meat products — Determination of phosphorus content (tytuł angielski odtworzony z polskiego — karta katalogowa PKN podaje wyłącznie polski)

Step-by-step procedure

1. Settling what is in fact to be determined

   Establish whether the commission concerns TOTAL phosphorus (a measured quantity) or ADDED phosphorus (a calculated quantity). This is not a formality: for total phosphorus measurement methods exist, for added phosphorus a convention of calculation is needed, and no PN standard in force carries that today.

2. Checking the status of the document before accepting the commission

   PN-A-82060:1999 has been WITHDRAWN since 07-07-2015, and both documents on the same subject — PN-ISO 13730:1999 and PN-ISO 2294:1999 — since 25-09-2020. If the test is to be carried out within an accreditation scope, invoking a withdrawn standard must be a conscious decision of the laboratory agreed with the client and not the consequence of an unrefreshed scope.

3. Preparation of the laboratory sample (a general step for determinations in meat — it does NOT come from the text of PN-A-82060, which we did not have)

   Prepare and homogenise a sample of the product. WE DO NOT GIVE THE DETAILS — the test portion, the manner of comminution, the handling of the casing and the fat: they are in the text of the standard, which we did not have.

4. Mineralisation and determination of total phosphorus (a description of the measurement routes from the SCOPES on the catalogue cards of PN-ISO 2294 and PN-ISO 13730 — not from the text of PN-A-82060)

   Bring the phosphorus into a determinable form and determine it. PN-ISO 2294 describes the gravimetric route (mineralisation with sulfuric and nitric acid, precipitation of quinoline phosphomolybdate, drying and weighing), PN-ISO 13730 — the spectrophotometric route. WE GIVE NEITHER THE CONDITIONS, NOR THE CONCENTRATIONS, NOR THE WAVELENGTH — the description comes from the scopes on the catalogue cards, not from the texts of the standards.

5. Calculation of added phosphorus — THE STEP WE CANNOT DESCRIBE

   Added phosphorus is calculated by subtracting from the total content an assumed natural content derived from the protein content. WE GIVE NEITHER THE FORMULA, NOR THE COEFFICIENTS, NOR THE MANNER OF DETERMINING THE PROTEIN — they are in the text of PN-A-82060, which we did not have, and they are not on the catalogue card. This is the only content of this standard that cannot be reconstructed from any other document in the PN collection.

6. Report

   State whether the result concerns TOTAL or ADDED phosphorus, and the form of the result (in accreditation scopes one meets conversion to P₂O₅). With added phosphorus note that it is a quantity FROM CALCULATION and not a measurement. Give the full designation of the reference document together with the year — and be aware that it is a withdrawn document, which a client reading the report can check in the catalogue in a few minutes.

Required equipment and apparatus

Reagents, media and consumables

Health and safety (OHS)

• Mineralisation with concentrated sulfuric(VI) acid together with nitric(V) acid proceeds violently and exothermically — only under sound extraction, with a face shield and acid-resistant gloves.
• Add the acids to the sample in the order given in the method and never the other way round; the mixture with organic material foams and may throw out the contents of the vessel.
• The nitrogen oxide vapours formed during mineralisation are strongly irritant to the respiratory tract — do not open the vessels before cooling.
• Treat samples of raw meat as material presenting a microbiological hazard — a separate workstation, disinfection of the tools after comminution.
• Molybdate reagents are harmful; collect the residues after precipitation as chemical waste, not into the sewer.

Frequently asked questions