New law requires labels on meat
Country-of-origin labels to be required
By Stephen J. Hedges | Washington Bureau
September 13, 2008
WASHINGTON — In a few weeks, American shoppers will be able to look at a cut of meat or a pound of hamburger and see something they've never seen before—a label that says where the meat came from.
Starting Sept. 30, food manufacturers and grocery stores have to comply with a new federal law that requires "Country of Origin Labeling," or COOL, on beef, pork, chicken and lamb.
The new labels will tell consumers whether their food came from animals raised in the U.S. or another country. The law also covers perishable items, such as fruits and vegetables and a variety of nuts.
Some say this will enable consumers to avoid food that, for example, comes from countries that they have heard have food safety problems. It also will allow consumers to stick to American-grown food, if that is their preference.
Beef from abroad because of the complexities of the livestock industry, some product labels may list multiple countries. That's especially true of ground beef, because some meat processors combine cuts from a number of countries to make ground meat and hamburger patties.
Food safety groups have hailed COOL as a necessary step toward broader consumer education and buying choices. But now they complain that the Department of Agriculture has defined it as narrowly as possible.
For example, they say, the agency has defined a host of foods as "processed," such as mixed frozen vegetables, which exempts them from the new law.
"When they finalized this rule, they bent over backward to make as few things be covered as possible," said Michael Hansen, a senior staff scientist with Consumers Union.
"There are giant, giant loopholes in the law."
Many in the meat industry, these advocates say, have fought the new labeling law because they don't want consumers to know that they're buying imported hamburger and beef cuts. The USDA also stood against COOL, according to Lloyd Day, head of the agency's Agricultural Marketing Service, because of its projected impact on consumers and its estimated cost to the food industry: $2.5 billion in the first year.
But Congress has decreed that COOL will take effect on Sept. 30, so the debate over its merits is largely over. Now the industry is bracing for COOL's impact.
"We don't know exactly how it's all going to work," said Colin Woodall, the executive director of legislative affairs for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. "And we won't know until it's fully up and running."
Flak from food firms
In an era of bar codes and tracking numbers, COOL might seem simple to enact. For a few food manufacturers, it will be.
"There's no change for me, because all of my ground beef has always carried the born-and-raised-in-the-U.S.A. label because I track everything," said Mike Callicrate, who operates Ranch Foods Direct in Colorado Springs. "It's not that complicated."
But getting COOL enacted has in fact been a complicated six-year effort. Congress first passed COOL in 2002, but the bill ran into heavy political resistance from food companies and the government itself. USDA and even Congress sided with food manufacturers who said the law would be too costly to enact, and COOL was delayed.
By 2005, only the portion of COOL pertaining to fish and seafood was in effect.
The idea gained momentum, though, following a string of recent food-borne illness outbreaks, new concerns over the safety of food imports and some of the largest meat recalls in history.
What is 'processed?'
One of the biggest disagreements over the law's fine points is what constitutes a processed food item.
Agriculture tried to clarify this with some guidelines issued in August. A bag of imported frozen peas, for instance, must list its country of origin under COOL. But a bag of peas mixed with carrots is considered processed, and does not require such a label.
"It's considered processed if it's combined with one other ingredient," said Patty Lovera, assistant director of Food & Water Watch, a non-profit consumer rights organization. "We think they're being incredibly broad."
USDA's Day said that pre-packaged imported foods like peas and carrots have to carry an origin label.
But if vegetables are imported in bulk and then mixed together by a U.S. company, then they are considered processed and don't need one.
Another controversy involves imported livestock. Under COOL, meat derived from cattle imported into the U.S. for immediate slaughter can bear a label that states it's a product of its origin country and the United States, even though the animal was raised entirely outside the U.S.
Some fear that some meatpackers who slaughter both imported and domestic cattle won't bother with specific labels, and instead will apply the same label to both.
Other problems involve verifying the origins of thousands of cattle slaughtered each day to feed the U.S. meat market. Woodall's group is just one of a number of industry associations that joined to draft an affidavit that will make it easier for ranchers to show where their cattle came from—information that will be vital for COOL down the production line.
USDA met with the cattle groups in Washington earlier this month and approved the idea.
The agency issued its interim version of the law in August but has left itself room for adjustment.
Day said USDA hopes to draft a final version of the COOL regulations before the Bush administration's term is up in January. He said the department will be in an "education and outreach" phase for the next six months, taking into account the problems retailers and food companies experience with the new labeling requirements.
Consumer groups fear that those problems could lead to adjustments of COOL.
"Deep down a lot of people didn't want it to happen," said Lovera, of Food & Water Watch. "Now they've got to figure out how to implement it."
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