By Jennifer Whitlock
Field Editor
After the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published its new final rule regarding “Made in the USA” label claims, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced it would follow suit when it comes to meat labeling.
In a statement, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack commended the FTC for strengthening protections for American consumers and planned to complement those efforts through an agency initiative on labeling for products regulated by the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), which inspects meat, poultry, eggs and catfish products intended for human consumption.
“American consumers depend upon accurate, transparent labels to obtain important information about the food they consume. American farmers and ranchers depend upon those same labels to convey information about their products that consumers value and demand,” Vilsack said in a statement. “We have taken note of the many comments submitted to USDA and the FTC regarding meat labeling and understand that the current ‘Product of USA’ label on meat products may no longer effectively serve either of those purposes, to the detriment of consumers, producers and fair and competitive markets.”
After a long trade dispute between the U.S., Mexico and Canada, the World Trade Organization ordered the U.S. to repeal mandatory country-of-origin labeling (COOL) on beef and pork in 2015. Since then, muscle cuts and ground beef or pork processed or…
