Since the US enactment of the Country-Of-Origin Labeling (COOL) regulation in 2008, COOL has faced international controversy and pending World Trade Organization (WTO) sanctions; 

Despite this, similar European Union rules on country-of-origin labeling went into effect on April 1.

The EU rules require that the labels on certain fresh, chilled and frozen meat indicate the country which the animal was “reared in” and that which it was “slaughtered in.” If animals were born, raised and slaughtered in the same country, then the label can simply state the “origin” country.

The rule actually goes back to a requirement of EU’s 2011 Food Information for Consumers Regulation, but it just went into effect this month, following Member State agreement in December 2013. Currently the EU’s rules apply only to fresh, chilled and frozen meat from sheep, goats, pigs and poultry (with beef labeling having been required since 2002). They do not apply to processed meat or preparations, however, the Commission has published a report on thepossibility of extending mandatory indication for meat used as an ingredient and has commissioned an external study on other unprocessed meats. Additionally, the rule includes language requiring that the origin of main ingredients of foods be labeled if their origin differs from a finished product-declared origin. However, no EU implementing act has yet been developed for this rule.

The EU is not the only international body to be focusing on the origin of foods. In February, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott also backed plans to introduce country-of-origin labeling�" despite being a WTO plaintiff against the U.S. COOL regulation in 2013.

COOL’s Importance

What does all this really mean? Why is country-of-origin labeling of importance? Why is it so internationally controversial? And, being so controversial, why are countries continuing to initiate their own versions of COOL?

As we did in our newsletter of December 11, 2014, let’s start with a bit of history. The U.S. COOL provisions began with the 2002 Farm Bill, prompted by U.S. consumer demand for information on the source of products they were purchasing. The 2008 Farm Bill updated, then expanded, the list of covered commodities, requiring that the original source countries be identified on the product label in plain, recognizable language. But, even before the effective date of March 16, 2009, rolled around, the COOL requirements for beef and pork were being contested on an international level, with complaints being filed with the WTO. Canada was the first complainant, but through the years, 14 other countries (including Australia) followed, contesting U.S. COOL regulations as inconsistent with free trade, providing favoritism and financial partiality for U.S. products. As a result, WTO sanctions are pending against the U.S. for COOL having “a detrimental impact on the competitive opportunities.”

The U.S. has fought against the complaints and pending sanction, amending the language, but never able to both meet the U.S. Congressional mandate and satisfy the WTO complainants. So in the December article, we asked you: “While these countries continue to battle each other, do consumers lose the war by not knowing where their food is coming from? Does free trade lose? Or does industry lose as it has to bear the cost of this legislation if allowed?” You answered:

Based on the responses to our survey (above), it looks like everyone loses except free trade!

COOL Justification

Despite all the controversy and potential sanctions, countries are continuing to set regulations requiring origin labeling. Why?

• European Commission: “Today’s consumers, whether shopping on-line or in a supermarket, increasingly want clearer and more understandable food labelling to help them make informed choices on the food they eat.” and “Those rules intend to protect consumers from misleading origin indications and will ensure a level playing field between food business operators.”
• Australia: The initiative was a response to the hepatitis A outbreak from frozen berries imported from China, linked to poor hygiene and water supplies in the packaging plant. As cited in the Reuters report, the Prime Minister said, “For too long, people have been talking about country of origin labelling. And nothing much has changed. … Plainly, whenever we have a problem with imported food in particular, people want to know more about where their food, where their products are coming from.”
• USDA: “Mandatory COOL requirements help consumers make informed purchasing decisions about the food they buy.”

Interestingly, however, research conducted by USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) found that, while proponents of COOL assert that consumers view the U.S. label as an indication of safety, quality, or as a means of supporting U.S. producers, consumer purchases did not confirm this supposition.

Rather, the ERS article on the research states, “The implications of the research suggest that price is a more important determinant of buyer behavior than COOL, a finding consistent with various consumer surveys. Consumers may also feel that retail outlets, the brand of fish, or existing health and safety regulations provide adequate assurance of the quality and safety of the product without having to rely on country-of-origin labels.”

This finding corresponds with our own take on COOL. Although there are U.S. consumer groups pushing for COOL under the belief that it represents a food safety tool, the labeling is really more about consumers’ desire to know than it is about providing any sort of robust process for public health protection.

As you can tell with what is going in the EU, the US, and now Australia, the COOL train has clearly left the station. I have little confidence that COOL is a food safety tool, but it will add costs to food, and thus, as noted above, it is price, not COOL, that drives consumer buying habits.

The goal for food companies is to only sell safe food irrespective of country of origin, and the new components of FSMA, such as supply chain controls in the Preventive Control rules and the Foreign Supplier Verification Program, drive toward exactly that �" making COOL even more obsolete as a food safety tool for FDA-regulated products. But, despite this, it is likely that it is here to stay, so we have to find ways to keep the data accurate �" which always drives us back to product tracking and record keeping.

Dr. David Acheson is the Founder and CEO of The Acheson Group.

Dr. Acheson brings more than 30 years of medical and food safety research and experience to the firm. www.achesongroup.com  

David graduated from the University of London Medical School and practiced internal medicine and infectious diseases in the United Kingdom until 1987 when he moved to the New England Medical Center and became an Associate Professor at Tufts University in Boston, studying the molecular pathogenesis of foodborne pathogens.

Prior to forming The Acheson Group, David served as the Chief Medical Officer at the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service and then in 2002 joined the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as the Chief Medical Officer at the FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN). After serving as the Director of CFSAN’s Office of Food Defense, Communication and Emergency Response, David was appointed as the Assistant and then Associate Commissioner for Foods which provided him an agency-wide leadership role for all food and feed issues and the responsibility for the development of the 2007 Food Protection Plan, which served as the basis for many of the authorities granted to FDA by the Food Safety Modernization Act.

Since founding the food safety practice within Leavitt Partners in July 2009, David has used his regulatory insight, food safety knowledge, and expertise in crisis response to advise food industry clients around the globe on how to best manage risk in a global supply chain and evolving regulatory landscape.

David has published extensively and is internationally recognized both for his public health expertise in food safety and his research in infectious diseases. He is a sought after speaker and regular guest on national news programs. He serves on a variety of boards and food safety advisory groups of several major food manufacturers. Additionally, David is a fellow of both the Royal College of Physicians (London) and the Infectious Disease Society of America, and a member of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), and International Association for Food Protection (IAFP).