Posted January 8, 2014
The Office
of Management Bureau (OMB) did not meet the deadline to advance the U.S.
Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) final rule for labeling mechanically
tenderized beef, according to a Politico article available here.
Brownfield Ag News also published an article available here,
Food Safety News here,
and Agri-Pulse here.
Because
the deadline was not met for 2014, USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service
(FSIS) cannot require the labels before 2018.
The
labeling measure was originally proposed in June 2013 due to customer concerns
that the meat is not properly cooked to eliminate pathogens. The meat is
tenderized by using knives and needles to drive bacteria inside the product,
according to Agri-Pulse.
The meat
industry strongly opposed the labeling requirement, but USDA officials did not
send the final rule for review until Nov. 21, and the regulation remains
pending at OMB. Under FSIS labeling regulations, if the rule was cleared by OMB
and approved by USDA by Dec. 31, it could have taken effect in 2016.
“It's
really a very unnecessary delay,” said Chris Waldrop, director of the Consumer
Federation of America's Food Policy Institute. “It means consumers remain at
risk because they don't have the information they need.”
On Dec.
31, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) urged the Obama administration to rule on
the case before midnight, according to Food
Safety News.
“These
products are not currently adequately labeled so consumers do not know that
they are different, present different risks, and require different preparation
than whole cuts of beef,” she said. “This is not a small problem: a 2008 USDA
study indicated that about 50 million pounds of mechanically tenderized beef
products are sold every month.”
The OMB
has declined to comment and noted that the agency has at least 90 days to
review a rule, according to Agri-Pulse.
Costco voluntarily
began labeling its tenderized beef products.
For more information on food safety, please visit the
National Agricultural Law Center’s website here.
