March 2, 2009

New "voluntary" government requests on the US meat industry for country-of-origin labelling (COOL) will be costly to producers and more complicated for those companies that depend on foreign sources for livestock and meat, an industry representative said Friday (February 27).

Jim Hodges, executive vice president of the American Meat Institute, told Dow Jones Newswires that the additional rules the US Department of Agriculture said recently it wants producers to adhere to create a "real question mark" when it comes to cost.

"They've not been a part of the debate or in the equation during the rule-making process," said Hodges, who is attending the USDA's annual Agricultural Outlook Forum.

USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack said last week he intends to implement the country-of-origin labelling law for meat on schedule on March 26. But the federal rule was written by the Bush administration and Vilsack said it did not go far enough to tell consumers where their meat comes from.

Rather than rewriting the rule to make the changes the Obama administration is seeking, Vilsack said he will be asking meat producers to voluntarily comply.

If livestock were born and raised in one country, but slaughtered and processed in another country, all of that should be documented in the labels that consumers see in grocery stores, Vilsack said.

Because of the uncertainty of cost, Hodges said it's impossible to tell whether US meat producers will comply with the additional labelling standards.

"There's no legal obligation for them to do that at this point," Hodges said.

Vilsack's additional requests on the meat industry are not mandatory, but the USDA Secretary also warned the industry that they will be monitored for compliance.