Mixed meals (meat & grain combinations) — HMTc Standard

How every number on this page is set

The standard for each analyte is the strictest maximum level set by any credible government regulator — the European Union, the United Kingdom, Codex Alimentarius, Health Canada, China, India, Brazil, the Gulf states (GSO), Australia/New Zealand, and the US FDA — converted into Mixed meals (meat & grain combinations)’s own as-consumed basis. It is a lookup of sovereign law, carrying at most one disclosed basis conversion where the law is written in another basis, and an explicit read-across where no government regulates the exact product. A certified product sits at or below every applicable sovereign limit at once.

Where no government regulates the exact product for an analyte, the standard does not go blank or invent a number: the limit is read across from the nearest government value for an analogous product, so a certified product still sits at or below a real sovereign limit. The ratchet tightens these after publication as surveillance warrants.

Master Limit Table

All values in ppb (µg/kg), as-consumed basis. Every analyte carries a firm ceiling. A brand meeting every value on a like-for-like basis qualifies for the mark.

Analyte	Tier	HMTc limit	Binding basis
Lead (Pb)	Tier 1	10	strictest government ML (FDA)
Inorganic arsenic (iAs)	Tier 1	20	strictest government ML (EU)
Mercury (tHg)	Tier 1	20	government read-across — China GB 2762 total-Hg 20 for canned complementary infant foods; no government sets a mercury ML for any infant-food form, so 20 is applied as the program-settled flat value (matches the deployed formula-powder standard).
Cadmium (Cd)	Tier 1	40	strictest government ML (EU)
Total chromium (Cr)	Tier 2	n/m	not material — controlled analyte (see note)
Nickel (Ni)	Tier 2	500	strictest government ML (EU)
Tin (Sn)	Tier 2	5000	strictest government ML (India)
Aluminium (Al)	Tier 2	500	government read-across (AU-NZ Schedule 19 infant-formula Al 500, the only government aluminium ML in any jurisdiction) applied at face value; the 8:1 reconstitution factor is formula-specific and is not applied to a non-formula product.

Tier 1 (Pb, Cd, iAs, Hg) are zero-tolerance toxics with no established safe threshold. Tier 2 (Ni, Al, Sn, Cr) carry a 150% transitional allowance under the program’s Status A–E framework. Total chromium is limited as shown; hexavalent chromium is controlled through it — mandatory Cr-VI speciation on any total-chromium result above 100 ppb, and any quantifiable Cr-VI fails.

Derivation — every government’s number, side by side

The full derivation for Mixed meals (meat & grain combinations). Each row lists every government maximum level in force worldwide, converted to the as-consumed basis; the HMTc limit is the strictest of them, and the last column names which sovereign law binds. A blank cell means that government sets no limit for this analyte in this product.

Analyte	EU	UK	Codex	China	India	Brazil	FDA	HMTc	Binds
Lead (Pb)	—	—	20¹	—	200¹	20¹	10¹	10	FDA
Inorganic arsenic (iAs)	20¹	—	—	200¹	—	150¹	—	20	EU
Mercury (tHg)	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	20²	read-across
Cadmium (Cd)	40¹	40¹	—	60¹	100¹	50¹	—	40	EU
Total chromium (Cr)	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	n/m³	controlled
Nickel (Ni)	500¹	—	—	—	—	—	—	500	EU
Tin (Sn)	—	—	—	—	5000¹	—	—	5000	India
Aluminium (Al)	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	500²	read-across

All values µg/kg (ppb), as-consumed basis. ¹ basis-converted at the 8:1 powder-to-liquid ratio — the only such ratio a government legislates (China GB 2762 footnote c). ² read-across: no government sets this analyte for this exact product; the value is read across from the nearest government value for an analogous product. ³ not material in this matrix: controlled by reflex speciation, not a standalone number.

## Sources

The published government regulations this standard derives from. Each maximum level is a sovereign limit and each read-across the nearest applicable government value; follow a reference for the source document and its per-analyte limits. Mercury and, in non-dairy matrices, chromium carry no direct government limit for these products and are handled by the read-across and reflex-speciation rules described above.

#	Citation	Year	Type	Used on this page for
1	915	2023	Maximum levels	Inorganic arsenic, cadmium, nickel — binding maximum levels
2	GB 2762 — National Food Safety Standard	2022	Maximum levels	Mercury — read-across
3	FSSAI (Contaminants, Toxins and Residues) Regulations	2011	Maximum levels	Tin — binding maximum level
4	FSANZ Food Standards Code — Schedule 19	2015	Maximum levels	Aluminium — read-across
5	US FDA — Closer to Zero action levels	2020	Guidance action levels	Lead — binding maximum level

Cite this standard

Pendergrass, K. “Mixed meals (meat & grain combinations).” In Heavy Metal Tested & Certified (HMTc) Infant and Child Foods standard, version 1.0. Institute of Contaminant Standards (ICS), 2026. DOI pending (Zenodo).

The literature baseline for every analyte is maintained independently at the Heavy Metal Index. This certification standard applies those findings; the two are kept editorially separate by design.

Version history

The dated editions of this standard. Each is kept at a stable permalink, so a regulator or brand can reconstruct exactly what the standard required on any date — the edition record, not an editorial commit trail. Version-pinned DOIs link here once each edition is deposited.

Version	Date	Status	What changed
v1.0	2026-08-06	current	Initial publication. Government-limit standard (Method v2.0): each analyte is the strictest sovereign maximum by lookup, converted to the as-consumed basis; a disclosed read-across from the nearest government value where no government regulates the exact product; total chromium controlled via reflex Cr-VI speciation where not a material toxic in the matrix.