COOL for beef coming in U.S.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is preparing to introduce voluntary Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) for beef.

Unlike mandatory COOL that Canada and Mexico successfully challenged, voluntary COOL is unlikely to be pursued by the mainstream beef-packing companies.

That’s because implementing COOL requires segregation of animals and meat throughout the processing plant and supply chain, increasing costs significantly.

 USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service announced it plans to propose a new rule that would essentially create a voluntary country of origin label that could be used on beef from cattle that have been born, raised and slaughtered in the United States.

FSIS laid out its plan in its response to the U.S. Cattlemen's Association (USCA) petition, submitted last October, regarding beef products labeling. 

USCA had asked the agency to amend its Food Standards and Labeling Policy Book so that any beef labeled in such a way as to lead the buyer to believe it came from U.S. livestock, had to in fact be fabricated from U.S. livestock, or mandatory country-of-original labeling. 

Mandatory COOL was devastating to Canadian and Mexican farmers because U.S. packers either didn’t buy any at all, or discounted prices to offset the costs and logistics of segregating their beef processing and packaging.

Canadian and Mexican prices for cattle declined to well below U.S. prices; the two countries won appeals to the World Trade Organization (WTO), but it wasn’t until the WTO cleared the way to impose retaliatory tariffs on a long list of U.S. products that the U.S. withdrew mandatory COOL.