Origin Labeling

Country-of-origin labeling is a practice increasingly demanded by consumers in an age when food crises seem more and more prevalent and more and more widespread as tainted [Page 343]produce, once discovered, is found to have been distributed nationwide or farther. The history of food legislation in the United States shows an increasing amount of required information in food labeling to inform and in some cases warn consumers—from ingredient labeling (and regulations as to what ingredients may be called) to nutritional information to allergy warnings. The 2002 Farm Bill required retailers to label fresh (but not processed) beef, pork, and lamb with country-of-origin information; peanuts, poultry, and produce were later added to this list. As a result of delays and continued debate, so-called COOL (country-of-origin labeling) was not implemented until September 30, 2008.

Though the inclusion of COOL in the Farm Bill was not as contentious as nearly every other item—most congressional debate centered, as usual, around subsidies, the necessity or lack thereof, and the specifics thereof—various contradictory legislation was introduced from 2001 to 2008, including measures that would make COOL labels voluntary for meat, and others that would make them mandatory for all uncooked/unprocessed food products and would implement the labels effective almost immediately. The reasoning for supporting or opposing COOL varied. Some proponents said that COOL would give domestic products a deserved competitive advantage, since domestic food would be presumed to be fresher (even apart from any desire to Buy American on the part of the consumer). Further, the average American can be assumed to have some basic understanding of the food safety requirements of his country and to have some faith in them; in contrast, although there are requirements placed on imported food, the same direct oversight is not in place, and when a food safety crisis centers around an imported product, consumers become more motivated to buy domestic products instead. For this reason, many supermarkets were already implementing limited COOL labeling—if nothing else, drawing attention to domestic products except in such unusual cases where foreign origin was a selling point (New Zealand lamb, Kobe beef from Japan, volcano oranges from Italy)—in response to the same consumer demand that elsewhere manifested itself as pressure from congressional constituencies.

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy—mad cow disease—is the best known recent example of an international food safety crisis that affected food trade because of the severity of the disease (and the variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which can be contracted by humans who consume brain or spinal cord matter from an infected cow). Though U.S. regulations meant to prevent mad cow infections have been shown to be exceptionally poor and ill enforced, fears have centered predominantly around beef from Britain (where more than 150 people have died as a result of mad cow) and Canada (historically a major importer of beef to the United States and where mad cow was found beginning in 2003). Though little British beef is imported to the United States, the crisis made consumers want to be sure of exactly where their beef came from—and after television talk show host Oprah Winfrey's overcautious and later recanted declaration that she would avoid all beef just to be safe, it was in the U.S. beef industry's best interests to differentiate between domestic and foreign products.

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