Grass-fed label rescinded in U.S.

Monday, March 7, 2016

Too much overlap and no guarantees – those are the reasons behind the U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Marketing Service's (AMS) January recision of labelling standards for grass-fed and naturally-raised meat marketing claims.

"Because AMS does not have express authority to define grass-fed or naturally-raised, it is inappropriate for the agency to offer it as an AMS-defined marketing claim," the service noted Jan. 14.

Previously, anyone who wanted to market products using the standards had to obtain the go-ahead not only from the service but also from the agriculture department's Food Safety and Inspection Service or, conversely, meet the labelling requirements of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. And just because the marketing service approved the claims didn't mean the other agencies would, the service said in another January notice.

Predictably, the decision brought complaints. "Meat labelling just became even more confusing for farmers and consumers," fumed Ferd Hoefner, policy director of the U.S. National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition in a January news release. "Actions such as this take us into a Wild West situation, where anything goes and both farmers and consumers lose."

Anyone with "naturally-raised" promotion ambitions, however, needn't worry about encountering an O.K. Corral-style free-for-all of new standards and marketing claims.

It turns out no one was even using the naturally-raised standard.

More have bought into the grass-fed standard and, if they want to continue the claim, they must convert the standard into either an existing, new or privately-developed standard by April 11, the service has said. BF