Liquid chromatographic procedures employing dansyl chloride and phthalaldehyde as derivatisation reagents were used for the determination of biogenic amines in meat products during fermentation and long-term storage. Both methods give similar results in terms of limits of detection, repeatability, recovery and accuracy. Secondary amines (spermine and spermidine) do not react with phthalaldehyde and therefore their LC determination after derivatization is possible only with dansyl chloride. The content of secondary amines during fermentation and/or long-term storage is nearly constant or slightly decreases, hence their determination is not necessary. A liquid chromatographic procedure employing phthalaldehyde derivatization is faster, much simpler in terms of pretreatment of samples and can be fully automated using an intelligent autosampler.