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Notice of Establishment of Guidelines for the Interim Voluntary Country of Origin Labeling Americans for Country of Origin Labeling Country of Origin Labeling Program Via E-Mail: cool@usda.gov and Facsimile: 202-720-3499 Re: Notice of Establishment of Guidelines for the Interim Voluntary Country of Origin Labeling of Beef, Lamb, Pork, Fish, Perishable Agricultural Commodities, and Peanuts Under the Authority of the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946 Dear Sir or Madam: We, the undersigned trade organizations, representing fruit and vegetable, peanut, wild fish, farm-raised fish, and live cattle, sheep, and swine industries, and consumer organizations, together submit the following comments on the Agricultural Marketing Service’s Voluntary Guidelines for Country of Origin Labeling. We appreciate the hard work and openness of the Agricultural Marketing Service (Agency) in this process. We collectively submit these comments as an addition to any individual comments submitted on behalf of our respective organizations. The Agency is encouraged to consider and incorporate the following principles which we collectively believe should form the basis for revising the current voluntary guidelines as well as for establishing mandatory country of origin labeling rules: Principle 1 The Agency should not unilaterally shrink the pool of covered commodities beyond the specific exclusions expressly listed by Congress. A. Congress expressly excluded covered commodities
only if they meet the following criteria: (1) If the item is an ingredient
in a processed
food item. (2) If the covered commodity is – (a) prepared or served
in a food service establishment; and (b)(i) offered for sale or sold
at the food service establishment in normal retail quantities; or (ii)
served to consumers at the food service establishment. i. Only if Congress had specified that covered commodities be “fresh” or “raw” commodities would the Agency’s exclusion of cooked, cured, or restructured items be appropriate. b. The Agency unilaterally excluded covered commodities that have merely been enhanced with such additives as water, salt, flavoring, vegetable protein, or other extenders, enhancers, or additives. As a result, merely adding water or flavoring, regardless of the amount, to ground beef, pork, or lamb would effectively exclude these items from coverage. B. The Agency should specifically include in rules that merely processing a covered commodity, i.e., cooking, roasting, curing, or restructuring does not exclude the commodity from coverage. C. The Agency should specifically include in rules that merely adding water, salt, seasoning, flavoring, or other additives to a covered commodity does not exclude the covered commodity from coverage. The following are examples of covered commodities that should not be excluded from coverage: a. Peanut butter, a processed product derived exclusively from peanuts,
is a covered commodity. D. The Agency should distinguish between “ingredients,” which should include components of a food product that are also commodities; and “additives,” “enhancers,” “extenders,” “flavoring,” “seasoning,” and “breading,” that are separate and distinct from legitimate ingredients as they do not result in changing the covered commodity into a separate and distinct food product. The exclusion should only apply to such food items as soup, stew, pizza, TV dinners, frozen casseroles, and other food items in which the combination of commodities results in a food item separate and distinct from any of the individual covered commodities included in the food item. Principle 2 The Agency should not restrict the flexibility Congress afforded retailers in labeling covered commodities. A. The Agency’s voluntary guidelines mandate that terms such as “Produce of Country X” or “Grown in Country Y” be used to denote the origin of the covered product. In the final regulations, we believe the Agency should accept the listing or marking of the individual country name, or recognized abbreviation, e.g., United States or USA, as being sufficient to meet the requirements of the statute. Principle 3 The Agency should not impose a regulatory burden on persons Congress did not include as regulated entities. A. Congress listed all the persons who would be subject to the Secretary’s discretionary authority to require a verifiable record-keeping audit trail. Included are persons who prepare, store, handle, or distribute a covered commodity for resale. Excluded are producers who sell live cattle, hogs, and sheep (not covered commodities) to persons who subsequently transform these live animals into covered commodities, and growers who sell covered commodities to those who subsequently prepare, store, handle, or distribute a covered commodity for resale. B. The Agency should not use the statutory reference to "suppliers" in section 282(e) of the Act as the basis for regulating producers or growers of covered commodities unless they are direct sellers to retailers. That provision requires those supplying a covered commodity to a retailer to provide information on product origin to the retailer. Thus, that provision can only refer to those selling directly to the retailer, not indirect sellers. a. If the Agency intends to exercise its discretionary authority to require a verifiable record-keeping audit trail, only those persons who prepare, store, handle, or distribute covered commodities should be subject to such requirement. Principle 4 The Agency should take affirmative steps to delineate responsibilities and authorities relative to verifying origin. A. The Agency should require that sellers of a covered commodity, i.e.,
those who prepare, store, handle, or distribute a covered commodity,
have no greater duty than to denote the country of origin of the covered
commodities during each sales transaction; and C. The Agency should state in rules that it has the exclusive authority to conduct compliance audits for verifying origin. Principle 5 The Agency should establish a “Presumption of Domestic Origin” in rules. Such a presumption would be the least cost approach for regulatory efficiency without contravening WTO rules that allow imported products to be labeled and tracked in the food system. A. For commodities not covered by the act, i.e., live cattle, hogs, and sheep; and commodities not already subject to USDA record-keeping requirements, i.e., fruit and vegetables under PACA, fish and shellfish under HACCP, the Agency should establish a presumption of domestic origin. a. For commodities not already required to be marked as a foreign product as a condition of entry into the United States, the Agency should mandate that all cattle, sheep, and hogs be marked with their respective country of origin as a condition of entry into the United States. b. The Agency should establish in rules that all commodities including live cattle, hogs, and sheep not marked with a foreign marking at the point of slaughter shall be deemed a commodity born and raised exclusively in the United States. c. The Agency should establish in rules that live cattle, hogs, and sheep that have a foreign marking shall be identified as originating from the country from which it was marked. Only if the foreign-marked cattle, hogs, and sheep are also accompanied by a verifiable record-keeping trail denoting that the animal has resided in multiple countries during its production phase shall the resulting beef be labeled with a multiple country label. The maintenance and conveyance of the verifiable record-keeping trail shall be voluntary until the documentation reaches the point of slaughter. If such documentation is conveyed at the point of slaughter, the packer shall have an affirmative duty to maintain the multi-country of origin label applicable to the resulting covered commodities. Principle 6 The Agency should establish a reasonable means of clearing livestock of unknown origin from the United States production system that a) does not cause a delay in the implementation of the Act, and b) that does not affect the marketability of existing livestock. A. The Agency should establish in rules that because it is not practical or possible to determine the origin of animals presently residing in the United States, all animals not marked with a foreign marking are deemed to be born, raised, and slaughtered in the United States. Thus, the enforcement of the Act shall begin on the date the United States imposed the requirement that all animals imported in the United States must bear a permanent foreign marking. This will effectively constitute a grand fathering of any animals presently within the United States and of foreign origin. This grand fathering is prudent and necessary in order to equitably and fairly clear the livestock presently within the production system. Principle 7 The Agency should establish in rules that labeling of fish and shellfish shall include the specific designations of “farmed” or “wild” in addition to the country of origin. Principle 8 The Agency should establish in rules that origin declarations be incorporated within existing industry practices and programs. A. Retailers and suppliers of perishable agricultural commodities are already required to maintain records associated with each produce transaction. It would be a simple matter to incorporate an additional line, box, or field on existing records for a country of origin designation. B. For non-perishable covered commodities, the Agency should similarly overlay a line, box, or field on existing records associated with the five distinct model certification programs listed by Congress. C. The Agency should, as a service to industry, developed standardized forms for use in transferring origin information from sellers to buyers in the stream of commerce where industry does not have a pre-existing document adaptable for the purpose. Principle 9 The Agency should not impose a greater labeling requirement on blended products other than requiring the listing of the countries (and only the countries) from which the individual components originate. We appreciate the opportunity to comment on the Agency’s voluntary guidelines and look forward to working with the Agency to promulgate workable and effective rules for mandatory country of origin labeling.
Keith Gray Keith Gray Larry Mitchell Hugh Warren Traci Bruckner Arthur S. Jaeger Ray Hodge Luis Rodriguez Ray Gilmer Bob Redding Reggie Brown Bob Redding Barry T. Edington Shane Sklar Mark Ritchie Larry Brack Nancy Robinson R.M. Thornsberry, D.V.M. Brother David Andrews, CSC Tom Buis Eugene Paul Kay Doby Stephen Begley Mike Smith Fred Stokes Pennie Vance Colette DePhelps Brown Carrie Longwood Stan Rosendahl Patricia Lovera Leo McDonnell Bob Jones Bob Redding Randy Stevenson Harvey Joe Sanner John Smillie Cc: The Honorable Ann Veneman |