Thursday, October 24, 2013

Tyson won’t buy Canadian cattle


Tyson Foods won’t buy Canadian cattle because it can’t afford to meet the U.S. government’s County-of-Origin Labeling rules.

Worth Sparkman sent an e-mail to Meatingplace Magazine this week saying the buying ban took effect this week.

Tyson will, however, continue to buy Canadian cattle that have been finished in U.S. feedlots.

Tyson’s announcement steps up the pressure on the U.S. government to revamp its Country-of-Origin labeling rules to bring them in line with a World Trade Organization ruling that they unfairly and illegally discriminate against imported cattle and hogs.

Canada’s beef industry figures the rules cost Canadian farmers more than $600 million a year and the Canadian Pork Council puts its loss at $1 billion a year.

The U.S. proposals to meet the WTO ruling are, Canadian and U.S. meat packers agree, even worse than the existing rules.

"Like many others in the North American beef industry, we're very disappointed by the changes made in the U.S. country of origin labeling rules,” said Sparkman.

“These new rules significantly increase costs because they require additional product codes, production breaks and product segregation, including a separate category for cattle shipped directly from Canada to U.S. beef plants without providing any incremental value to our customers," Sparkman said.

Tyson does not have enough warehouse capacity to accommodate the proliferation of products requiring different types of labels due to the regulation, he said.