Not COOL

We’re not talking about the weather. There’s been some chatter about meat labelling and some of my customers were asking about something called Country Of Origin Labelling, often referred to as COOL.

“We thought that was a done deal years ago,” they questioned and it was until it wasn’t. Between lawsuits from the World Trade Organization and political posturing from well-paid lobbying groups representing industrial food processors and internationals meat packers the mandatory labeling requiring beef and pork sold in the United States were gutted in 2016 leaving loopholes big enough to drive a one ton pick-up truck towing a 26’ stock trailer through. The leaner rules meant that imported foods could be labeled as Product of the USA as long as they were minimally processed in the U.S. Minimal meant something as removing foreign beef or pork from one package and rewrapping it in another. Viola! Now it was Made in the U.S.A.

Practically all grocery stores purchase boxed meats in volume and then re-package into individual items. Even stores that sell what appears to be fresh meat don’t order whole carcasses and then break them down into individual cuts, once common in grocery stores and butcher shops.

This trend has exploded with online meat retailers who claim to be providing products raised by American farmers, but I’ve known some of those farmers who have sold beef and pork to these companies a few times after being promised record sales only to have the online retailer say no thanks after a few months while leaving the farmers’ names and faces all over their marketing.  

What’s worse, also exempted were food service companies such as cafeterias, restaurants, and any retailer selling less than $230,000 in less than a calendar year. Who decides on these numbers?

Keep in mind that these rules (or lack thereof) only apply to beef and pork. Chicken, lamb, goat, farm-raised and wild-caught fish and shellfish, perishable  agricultural commodities, peanuts, pecans, macadamia nuts, and ginseng must all follow COOL regulations.

If you’re shopping for your beef and pork at the farmers market, chances are you’re also talking to the farmers. But not all American farmers have access to the vibrant markets we have in the mid-Atlantic and major metropolitan areas or even custom inspected processing. In much of the country producers must first sell their products to a processor who limits their facilities to only their products. For instance, a pastured pork producer couldn’t take a dozen hogs down to the local Smithfield facility to have them slaughtered, cut and packed with the farmer’s name on the label. No, they’d have to first sell their hogs to Smithfield. Wither vertical integration of the meat industry, even that is no longer possible as the large packers contract with growers (no longer called farmers) to grow the animals that are owned by the packer. And here’s the most harrowing statistic of all—just four companies control 85% of the meat sold in this country. Of that, 774 million pounds of beef alone were imported mainly from Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and Australia.

While consumers may have been left in the dark or misled about where their food comes from, American farmers and ranchers have been working diligently to claw back the COOL requirements for beef and pork. Last week they felt as if some headway was made when the Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsak announced the USDA’s final ruling on Made in the USA labeling to be limited to livestock born, raised, and processed domestically.

But be warned, these rules don’t take effect until 2026 and even then they’re only voluntary.

So when asked what I think about COOL and imported beef and pork my answers will always be the same. Support your regional farmers so your food travels less than a hundred miles reducing the carbon footprint, so the money spent on producing your food goes back into the local communities, so that you won’t have to wonder where your food came from despite the label on the package.