Page 70 - Farm and Food Policy Strategies for 2040 Series

Several state legislatures, unwilling to wait for FDA-USDA regulation of cultured meat
substitutes, have passed or are considering bills sought by livestock producer constituents to ban
the use of meat-like terms on labels of those or plant-based meat substitutes. Some have ended
up facing legal challenges from alternative product manufacturers. A federal court in Missouri is
considering a proposed settlement in a suit by the makers of Tofurky and the Good Food Institute
(GFI), an advocacy group, against a state law that would ban labels with terms such as “burger,”
“sausage,” and “hot dogs” from plant-based foods. Mississippi, South Dakota and Washington
have similar bills.

One way to consider the future of food labels is to see how the last three decades of federal food
labeling regulation have played out. USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) has evaluated
the impact of labels that have been inaugurated in recent decades. Beyond Nutrition and Organic
Labels — 30 Years of Experience With Intervening in Food Labels uses case studies of five food
labels to show the economic effects and tradeoffs in setting standards and verifying claims.

The report, by a team of economists, compares five food labels — nutrition labeling, the USDA
organic seal, meat and poultry products raised without antibiotics, the voluntary non-GMO
product label and the now-lapsed country-of-origin label for beef and pork. They conclude many
consumers find the information too complex to use.

The authors give high marks to FDA’s “nutrition facts” label on most food packages for
providing information that most consumers treat as credible and truthful but note that many
ignore. By contrast, it finds USDA-approved claims for animals raised without antibiotics gave
credibility to competing labels but, because private firms independently defined what the claim
means, the label has not ensured that consumers understood differences in products. Because
USDA has limited resources to enforce animal-raising claims, private organizations have been
the chief impetus for penalizing violations by going to court.

Effects on trade have been mixed. Setting a national organic standard ended variance among
state standards and gave the organic sector more access to interstate and international markets,
increasing sales, ERS finds, but the WTO found COOL acted as a barrier to trade in meat.

The report suggests smartphone apps offer a new way to convey information that can’t fit on a
food label. “Many consumer and environmental groups, retailers and other organizations have
developed apps that provide information to users on health and nutrition, social issues and
environment attributes,” it says. “Apps are largely uncertified and unpoliced, which means they
are of dubious quality.”

ERS points out the fundamental tradeoffs in how information is presented to consumers. “If it is
presented simply, then important nuance or complexity may be missed. On the other hand, if
standards and labels attempt to convey complexity, then consumers may just be confused.” It
says policymakers need to consider such tradeoffs when developing new process-based labels.

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