Mixed meals (meat & grain combinations): HMTc Standard

How limits are 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.

Tier 1 (Pb, Cd, iAs, Hg) are zero-tolerance toxics with no established safe threshold. Tier 2 (tAs, Ni, Al, Sn, Cr) are held to the same government limit: tiering sets how the program reacts to an exceedance, not any permission to exceed it. A product is certified only when every analyte is at or below 100% of its published limit; above the limit, on any metal, it is not certified and carries no mark. Arsenic is limited in both forms: total arsenic (tAs) and inorganic arsenic (iAs) are separate ceilings that must both be met, and the species result never replaces the parent total. 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

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.

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: measured but with no standalone number, controlled by the total-metal screen, not an invented value.

Occurrence and derivation rationale

For each analyte on the panel: what the peer-reviewed and survey literature measured in this category, cited one way to the Heavy Metal Index, and the Method v2.0 reasoning behind the certification limit, including, where no government sets a number, why the program sets one anyway. Occurrence figures are literature findings; the derivation is the certifier's.

Risk Flag

On the published occurrence literature to date, Mixed meals (meat & grain combinations) shows no systematic gap between typical market levels and the limit: the limit being the strictest government maximum for the product (Method v2.0). Certification is decided on a product’s own tested result, not on a distribution; an individual lot or supplier can still exceed a limit.

See the cross-category summary of the ingredients that most often struggle.

Cite this standard

Pendergrass, K. (2026). Mixed meals (meat & grain combinations): HMTc standard (Standard No. 10.83138/hmtc.std.1.mixed-meals). Institute of Contaminant Standards. https://doi.org/10.83138/hmtc.std.1.mixed-meals

© 2026 Institute of Contaminant Standards / Heavy Metal Certified. All rights reserved.

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.