The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service welcomes input through 3 February on a proposal to amend the U.S. meat and poultry products inspection regulations to expand the circumstances in which FSIS will generically approve the labels of meat and poultry products. The agency is also proposing to combine the regulations that provide for the approval of labels for meat and poultry products into a new part in the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations.
Section 7(d) of the Federal Meat Inspection Act and Section 8(c) of the Poultry Products Inspection Act prevent any meat or poultry product from being sold or offered for sale in commerce under any name or other marking or labelling that is false or misleading, or in any container of a misleading form or size. Established trade names and other marking and labelling containers that are not false or misleading and are approved by the USDA are permitted. The USDA has historically interpreted these provisions to require the agency to approve all labels to be used on federally inspected and passed, and imported, meat and poultry products before the products are distributed in commerce. Without approved labels, meat and poultry products may not currently be sold, offered for sale or otherwise distributed in U.S. commerce.
The USDA notes that there are up to eight features required on most meat and poultry labels: (1) the standardised, common or usual, or descriptive name of the product; (2) an ingredients statement containing the common or usual name of each ingredient of the product listed in descending order or predominance; (3) the name and place of business of the manufacturer, packer or distributor; (4) an accurate statement of the net quantity of contents; (5) the inspection legend, including the number of the official establishment; (6) a safe handling statement if the product is perishable (e.g., "keep frozen" or "keep refrigerated"); (7) nutrition labelling for applicable meat and poultry products; and (8) safe handling instructions if the meat or poultry component of the product is not ready-to-eat. In addition, imported meat and poultry products must bear the country of origin under the product name.
These required features are designed to ensure that meat and poultry products are accurately and truthfully labelled and that they provide the necessary product information for consumers to make an informed purchasing decision. They must be prominently and informatively displayed on the principal display panel, the information panel or other surface of the product label on immediate containers of domestic and imported products, that is, on the receptacle or other covering in which any product is directly contained or wholly or partially enclosed in the case of meat and on any consumer package or any other container in which poultry products not consumer packaged are packed in the case of poultry.
Currently, FSIS evaluates sketches of labels for approval under its prior approval programme for labels that are to be used on federally inspected meat and poultry products and imported products. A "sketch label" is a printer's proof or other version that clearly shows all required label features, size, location and indication of final colour. To obtain sketch label approval, domestic meat and poultry establishments and certified foreign establishments or their representatives must submit sketch labels to FSIS for evaluation, except when the label is generically approved by the agency. Generic label approval refers to the prior approval of labels or modifications to labels by the FSIS without submitting such labels for sketch approval.
According to FSIS, the provisions of the generic label regulations appear to be comprehensive but nonetheless establish significant restrictions on the types of labels and labelling changes considered by the agency to be approved. For example, the label for a non-standardised product such as a pepperoni pizza (bearing no special statements or claims) that was sketch approved by FSIS would need to be resubmitted for sketch approval if the establishment makes a minor formula change that affects the order of predominance in the ingredients statement.
FSIS' proposal would streamline this process by expanding the circumstances in which the labels of meat and poultry products will be deemed to be generically approved by FSIS. For example, statements on labels that are defined in FSIS' regulations or policy guidance will not need to be submitted to the agency for evaluation. These include statements that characterise a product's nutrient content (e.g., "low fat"), that have geographical significance (e.g., "Italian Style"), or that make a country of origin statement on the label of any meat or poultry product. In addition, FSIS would not view the addition of an allergen statement (e.g., "contains soy") applied in accordance with the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act as a special statement or claim that requires sketch approval.
In a separate action, FSIS has extended from 1 January to 1 March 2012 the effective date of a final rule requiring nutrition labelling of the major cuts of single-ingredient, raw meat and poultry products and ground or chopped meat and poultry products. FSIS is taking this action in response to a request from eight trade associations.
