What’s naturally-raised beef?
What’s grass-fed beef?
The United States Department of Agriculture has decided it
can’t define and enforce standards, so is scapping its standards for those label
claims.
Specifically, the
department’s Agriculture Marketing Service is withdrawing the Grass (Forage)
Fed Claim for Ruminant Livestock and the Meat Products Derived from Such
Livestock (Grass (Forage) Fed Marketing Claim Standard); and the Naturally
Raised Claim for Livestock and the Meat and Meat Products Derived From Such
Livestock (Naturally Raised Marketing Claim Standard).
These AMS standards were originally published in the Federal
Register on May 12, 2006.
AMS explained in a news release that it had determined the
Grass Fed Marketing Claim Standards services do not fit within the agency’s
statutory authorities.
Applicants often seek to market the USDA-verified marketing
claim on a food product label. To do so for meat products, the company must
receive pre-approval from the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS).
“The existence of these AMS standards created more confusion
than they helped,” Deputy Administrator Craig Morris told Meatingplace magazine.
While the AMS acts as a third party to verify that producers
are adhering to their own standards on about 190 other various claims, the
agency had only set its own standards on grass-fed and naturally raised.
Further, even producers who adhered to the AMS “naturally
raised” standard were not able to come up with appropriate labels that were not
confusing or misleading to consumers, so FSIS was not able to approve labels
based on that standard.
Farmers are not happy.
“Meat labeling just became even more confusing for farmers
and consumers,” said Fred Heffner, policy director for the National Sustainable
Agriculture Coalition.
“USDA is revoking a label standard that had widespread farm
and consumer support. Actions such as this take us into a Wild West situation,
where anything goes and both farmers and consumers lose.”
The change will have little impact on the six grass-fed meat
companies currently labeling their meat (with FSIS approval) that are based on
the now-defunct AMS standard.
These companies can now simply use their own standard and
AMS will continue to act as a third party to verify whether or not they are
meeting that standard. The option of using the AMS standard was always
voluntary.
