USDA Prepares for Flood of Comments on "Natural"
by Steve Bjerklie
meatpoutlry.com
From the get-go, the word "natural" has been a problem for the meat industry as well as for its various regulatory agencies.
Legally, when the word appears on a product label approved by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, it means the product has been no more than minimally processed and that it contains no artificial or synthetic ingredients or preservatives.
But when innovative marketers such as Coleman Natural Meats began placing the word on meat labels nearly 30 years ago, they used "natural" to mean something else entirely: that the meat in the package came from animals that had not been given growth-promoting antibiotics or hormones. Ever since, the industry, the market and the government have struggled to bring some kind of clarity to the disparity.
And clarity may actually be on the horizon. On March 5, F.S.I.S. closed the comment period for its request for suggestions about how to better define the word.
According to Dr. Robert Post, director of the agency’s labeling and consumer protection staff, 17 comments had been posted on the Web site as of March 3, 2007, and many more submitted by a wide range of interested parties: consumer organizations, livestock groups, feed suppliers, etc.
He expects many more comment to be submitted in the last few days the period remains open. "There have been a wide variety of views," Post told MEAT&POULTRY, "but not all comments are in, so I wouldn’t want to make a conclusion" about a common opinion expressed in them.
He did say, however, that "‘natural’ is one of those examples that reflects the kinetic quality of food production" – that shows, in other words, "labels containing the word 'natural' on the label tend to create confusion among consumers."
Meanwhile, U.S.D.A.’s agency that covers livestock production and marketing, the Agricultural Marketing Service, is also taking a look at "natural." A.M.S. has held three "listening sessions" since mid-December to gather views and opinions on how a voluntary standard for claims of "natural" livestock production might best be described and determined. Martin O’Connor, who is chief of A.M.S.’s standards and analysis branch, said most of the speakers at the listening sessions, which where held in Washington, D.C., Denver and Seattle, "felt clarification was needed. They want to embrace at least a minimum standard."
The most commonly expressed opinion, he told M&P, is "natural" should mean no antibiotics or hormones were used to raise the livestock for which the natural claim is made. "This is on the minds of consumers," he said, "and production companies are beginning to recognize that."
A.M.S. hopes to develop the voluntary standard sometime this summer, O’Connor said, and once a standard is in place A.M.S. will conference with F.S.I.S. to discuss some sort of connection between an A.M.S. standard for "naturally raised" and an eventual F.S.I.S. labeling rule for the word – if in fact F.S.I.S. promulgates such a rule.
Post wouldn’t say whether the agency will move forward after the comment period or not: "I wouldn’t commit to saying that by the end of 2007 we will have a proposal published in the Federal Register," he told M&P.
He added that F.S.I.S. receives "a couple dozen" label sketches a day for meat and poultry products bearing the word "natural." While this is a substantial increase in the number of "natural" labels the agency saw 20 years ago, he cautioned that in general the agency sees many more labels now – 300-350 a day, he said – than it has in the past due to a greater array of meat and poultry products now being offered by the industry. "I’d say that we see about the same proportion of labels with ‘natural’ on them as we did in the past."
If A.M.S. publishes a standard for "naturally raised" production claims, producers wanting to use it will need to write a documented plan that’s available for audit, O’Connor said. "They’ll have to conform to our process-verification program. The standard itself would be voluntary – only those producers wanting to make the claim would need to be process-verified. The push behind us was people coming to us for a voluntary program, not a rule."