Inside World Trade

Country of origin labeling: where is the U.S. beef?

Have you wondered why some cuts of beef in the supermarket are labeled as products of three countries, the U.S., Canada, and Mexico? Surely one sirloin steak cannot be composed of three different cows. So the beef must be a product of only one of the countries, but the shopper has no way of knowing which one.

Country of origin labeling of beef products stems from a complex set of regulations influenced by political and economic factors. The result is a confusing labeling system that does not serve to adequately inform the consumer in purchasing meat products.

Congress first included country-of-origin labeling (COOL) for beef products in the Farm Bill of 2002. But due to the continued disagreements between cattle ranchers and meat packers over how the regulations should be interpreted, the implementation of the bill was delayed six years. The USDA, as the agency involved in enforcing the rules, was intensely lobbied to revise them and it did so by writing interim rules until the disagreements could be resolved.

In the 2008 Farm Bill, Congress passed the final regulations on labeling with a few amendments to satisfy all interested parties. The Farm Bills essentially required retailers to notify their customers of the country of origin of muscle cuts and ground beef, lamb, pork, chicken, goat, wild and farm raised fish and shellfish, perishable agricultural commodities, peanuts, pecans, ginseng,and macadamia nuts. Food service establishments, and ingredients in processed foods, are exempt from the country-of-origin labeling.

The regulations prescribe specific criteria for a commodity to have a U.S. country of origin label. They also have provisions for labeling food products of foreign origin, as well as meat products from multiple origins. These provisions, however, are the source of a continued battle on labeling between the cattle producers and the meat packers.

The labeling of meat products is based on what the meat packers process on a given production day. The USDA rules state that if meat from the U.S. and mixed origin animals are commingled during a production day, the resulting product may have a mixed origin label such as "Product of U.S., Canada and Mexico." If the meat processed on a production day is derived solely from livestock of U.S. origin it must be labeled as U.S. origin.

The meat packers are supposed to have a tracking system to determine the origin of livestock that is processed on a production day. However, the cattlemen and ranchers' organizations are claiming that the meat packers are not properly sorting meat of U.S. origin in order to reduce the cost of separate labeling. A loophole in the law allows a packer to use the three country label when there is a least one animal from each foreign country. So if the meat packer processes 1000 cattle in a production day and 998 are born and raised in the U.S. they only need to add one from Mexico and one from Canada to use the three country label. The cattle producers say that this means the meat packers are not allowing consumers to distinguish the domestic product, and they are undermining the requirements of the Farm Bill. They intend to request Congress and the new Agriculture Secretary to amend the rules to prohibit the use of mixed country of origin labeling on domestic beef.

So if you find yourself in the supermarket pondering a package of beef labeled with three countries of origin, there is a good chance that it is U.S. beef. On the other hand, you may have a piece of meat from Mexico or Canada processed in the U.S. For any real certainty of origin, try the chicken.

Frances Allday was a specialist in commercial trade with U.S. Customs and Border Protection for 25 years