USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue’s suggestion last week that voluntary labels declaring that meat is “slaughtered and processed in the U.S.” might be acceptable in lieu of mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) not surprisingly have drawn criticism from Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of America (R-CALF USA).
Perdue last week suggested it was an option that could pass scrutiny at the World Trade Organization (WTO), which found a previous U.S. mandatory COOL effort ran afoul of trade rules.
"This is exactly what the meatpackers and meat importers want: a label that does not identify in which country the cattle used to produce the meat were born and raised," said R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard.
There continues to be some labeling of U.S. beef and pork in grocery stores that indicate the meat was from animals born, raised and harvested in the U.S., but those efforts are not mandatory but reflect some grocery stores opting to not go through the expense of changing what had been mandatory labels.
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