Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Court affirms imported beef still allowed to be labeled "Product of USA"

foodsafetynews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 146 posts

Re: Court affirms imported beef still allowed to be labeled "Product of USA"

#91

Post by JoeAltmaier »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #88
LegitShady wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are big quality control issues with shipping away cattle to other countries for slaughter as well. Your ability to control the final product is much reduced compared to when everything is regulated locally. I remember reading about a company importing crab and fish from china that on analysis found out what they were receiving wasn’t necessarily what they ordered, and the Chinese themselves were officia…

A massive amount of seafood in the US is intentionally mislabeled, which leads to a lot of problems because tilapia, for example, causes upset stomachs for a lot of people.

Not sure how that works. 'Tilapia' isn't a fish. Its 'any whitefish'

Re: Court affirms imported beef still allowed to be labeled "Product of USA"

#92

Post by batch12 »

nickff wrote: post #82
batch12 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems all about removing the capacity for a consumer to make an informed choice between products. The label 'Product of USA' should have an unambiguous meaning-- especially for food.

> "The label 'Product of USA' should have an unambiguous meaning..." And what should that meaning be? I don't understand where you think the line should be.

Whatever it is, it should be well understood. If that means finished in the USA, fine. If it means cradle to grave within the borders of the US, fine. Right now it means nothing since it isn't clear and is used as a label to drive sales through obscurity.

Re: Court affirms imported beef still allowed to be labeled "Product of USA"

#93

Post by sethammons »

JasonFruit wrote: post #29
chrisbrandow wrote: post #18

The answer to the question, "does a consumer think that beef with a USA label might have come from another country?" is obviously "No" But there is a certain type of Lawyer-brain legalism that has infected our courts, and I don't know of a good solution. But you get this kind of obvious perverse result where it just defies common sense. In that sense, I can understand how lawyers and judges looked at whatever laws th…

"Lawyer-brain legalism" describes the right way to interpret law, though. The way to fix it isn't to be flexible about the law, but to write better law.

I wish there was a better mechanism for intent vs letter of the law. Activist judges can be a real problem, but so can "oh, yeah, but this comma was in the wrong spot, so we are legal!".

Re: Court affirms imported beef still allowed to be labeled "Product of USA"

#95

Post by elliekelly »

JasonFruit wrote: post #29
chrisbrandow wrote: post #18

The answer to the question, "does a consumer think that beef with a USA label might have come from another country?" is obviously "No" But there is a certain type of Lawyer-brain legalism that has infected our courts, and I don't know of a good solution. But you get this kind of obvious perverse result where it just defies common sense. In that sense, I can understand how lawyers and judges looked at whatever laws th…

"Lawyer-brain legalism" describes the right way to interpret law, though. The way to fix it isn't to be flexible about the law, but to write better law.

I disagree. My experience is limited to regulators, not judges, but Europe tends to be much more focused on the spirit of the law compared to America's focus on the letter of the law. The law can (and should!) be flexible. Legislation cannot possibly conceive of every possible fact pattern that might emerge. It's an unrealistic expectation and it would be a waste of effort to try to draft laws that way because they’d either be so specific they'd never apply or they'd be so broadly vague that they'd apply to everyone.

Re: Court affirms imported beef still allowed to be labeled "Product of USA"

#96

Post by mmarq »

henrikschroder wrote: post #79
mmarq wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not familiar with American labelling, but in the EU there are several labels that mean different things. I’m not an expert, but roughly speaking PDO ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_designation_of_ori... ) means that the entire process follows certain procedures, ingredients come from a particular area and production happens in certain areas (usually the same as the ingredients). PGI ( https://en.m.wik…

The EU just has so much more and better regulations on food labelling than the US. Also, for meat, origin labelling is mandatory, but you usually see all three: "raised in", "butchered in", packaged in". If I understand the case in the article correctly, they're saying that if any of those three countries is the US, you can slap a "Product of the USA" on it and be done with it, which just wouldn't fly in the EU.

It would fly in the EU, if you branded your product accordingly. Maybe "Product of the USA" doesn't mean much legally. In the EU you can probably brand something as "Product of the EU", but you can't make wine in your basement and call it Prosecco, because "Prosecco" is a PDO wine/name and must be produced in Valdobbiadene and Conegliano using local grapes. Maybe somebody should register a brand and license it to producers that follow certain processes? Certainly there are private companies already doing that, but nobody cares.

To be honest, these protected denominations favour the producers more than the consumer. If you think about it, from the consumer's perspective, it doesn't really make sense to prevent somebody in Florence from producing Prosecco, if they follow the correct procedures and use the correct grapes. The same applies for meat origin labelling, why should I care if my steak comes from the UK? I would understand Argentina... I find way more relevant knowing the breed rather than the country of origin (What's this? Angus? Chianina? https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/steak/sainsburys...)

But I digress.

Re: Court affirms imported beef still allowed to be labeled "Product of USA"

#97

Post by bigcat123 »

ldoughty wrote: post #16

I sympathize with US ranchers, but I agree with the courts that "Product of the USA" okay... M-COOL (Meat Country of Origin Label) is the right solution... and let me give an example why: If I buy a new, real wood, kitchen table, that was imported as a sapling, planted in the USA for 20 years, then milled in the USA, then worked into a table by USA craftsmen -- would that be a product of the USA? I'd say so, and I th…

No post body was provided.

Re: Court affirms imported beef still allowed to be labeled "Product of USA"

#98

Post by jeltz »

chrisbrandow wrote: post #18

The answer to the question, "does a consumer think that beef with a USA label might have come from another country?" is obviously "No" But there is a certain type of Lawyer-brain legalism that has infected our courts, and I don't know of a good solution. But you get this kind of obvious perverse result where it just defies common sense. In that sense, I can understand how lawyers and judges looked at whatever laws th…

In my country, Sweden, this is much less of a problem since we put more emphasis on the spirit of the law which reduces the amount of lawyer-brain legalism. I think the US also should move more towards spirit of the law over letter of the law.

Re: Court affirms imported beef still allowed to be labeled "Product of USA"

#99

Post by phonypc »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #91
KennyBlanken wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A massive amount of seafood in the US is intentionally mislabeled, which leads to a lot of problems because tilapia, for example, causes upset stomachs for a lot of people.

Not sure how that works. 'Tilapia' isn't a fish. Its 'any whitefish'

Tilapia certainly does not refer to any whitefish. If tilapia is not "a fish" then neither are salmon or tuna or probably a dozen other common names.

Re: Court affirms imported beef still allowed to be labeled "Product of USA"

#100

Post by kuang_eleven »

That seems like a reasonable ruling.

For any product, if there is a substantive processing step done (other than basic packaging), I would consider the label to be accurate.

Additionally, mandatory COOL seems like a self-serving overreach by the cattle industry. By all means, include optional labeling specifying the country of origin, following whatever (non-fraudulent) criteria you want, and that label can be protected all you want, but don't make it mandatory.

Shades of the equally ridiculous mandatory GMO labeling that thankfully got nixed.

Post reply on HN