Mixed and prepared meals (frozen dinners, boxed meals, ready-to-eat) — HMTc Standard

How every number on this page is set

A composite food has no contaminant maximum level of its own — no government sets a heavy-metal ML for 'bone broth' or 'prepared meal.' The HMTc limit for each analyte is therefore a disclosed read-across from the strictest maximum level a credible government sets for the product's principal components, converted to the as-consumed basis. Credible regulators are the EU, Codex, US FDA, WHO/JECFA, FSANZ, Health Canada, the UK, and — for the terrestrial-animal-meat commodities that anchor an animal-bone stock — Hong Kong (Cap 132V). Occurrence never sets a value.

Bone broth is a long-simmered animal-bone and connective-tissue stock. Bone is the body's principal lead reservoir, and lead partitions from bone into the broth during prolonged, often acidulated simmering, so lead is the priority analyte and reads across the strictest credible animal-meat lead ML (FSANZ, 100 µg/kg) rather than a generic stock value; cadmium reads across the meat ML (EU, 50). Total mercury reads across the Hong Kong Cap 132V meat-of-animal mercury ML (50 µg/kg): terrestrial meat is not a mercury-bioaccumulation matrix, but a sovereign meat ML exists, so the cell is a disclosed read-across rather than an unbounded screen. Where no credible regulator sets a component ML (nickel, tin, aluminium, total chromium) the analyte is held under mandatory control; the species cells (inorganic arsenic, methylmercury, hexavalent chromium) are substantiated not-material determinations bounded by their measured total. A fish-derived bone broth additionally inherits the Category 6 seafood ceilings.

Master Limit Table

All values in ppb (µg/kg), as-consumed basis. 6 of 11 analytes carry a firm ceiling; the remainder are governed by mandatory control or reflex-speciation screening with no standalone number, itemised in the derivation below. A brand meeting every firm value on a like-for-like basis, and passing every control, qualifies for the mark.

Tier 1 (Pb, iAs, Hg, MeHg, Cd) are zero-tolerance toxics with no established safe threshold. Tier 2 (tAs, Ni, Sn, Al, Cr, Cr-VI) carry a 150% transitional allowance under the program’s Status A–E framework.

Derivation — the binding sovereign limit

For Mixed and prepared meals (frozen dinners, boxed meals, ready-to-eat), each HMTc limit is the strictest maximum level any credible government sets for the product, named in the Binding column with the count of jurisdictions that concur at that value. Where no government regulates the analyte, the cell is a mandatory control or a not-material determination, never an invented number.

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.

Cite this standard

Pendergrass, K. “Mixed and prepared meals (frozen dinners, boxed meals, ready-to-eat).” In Heavy Metal Tested & Certified (HMTc) Prepared and Packaged Meals standard, version 1.0. Institute of Contaminant Standards (ICS), 2026. DOI: registration pending.

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.