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

foodsafetynews.com

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

#141

Post by derbOac »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #132
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…

I don't care about corporate rights I care about consumer rights. If it says Made in the USA, especially food stuffs, it should never have left the country for any purpose, I might make an exception for Canada, but only because they have as good or better standards as the USA. I don't trust Mexico or the Chinese FDA equivalents, given the sheer amount of corruption in those countries. I hope this lousy decision is ap…

I have to admit that my intuition is food should be 100% within region to use a "made in" label, in a way that other products might not, although I'm not sure if I can explain it.

Other things I think there's more of an expectation of durable component retransportation or even reuse or recycling at the extreme, and not the same issues of direct bodily safety. You could also make the argument that increased transportation and processing per se, regardless of where, would all other things being equal, increase safety risks.

This is all vague in my head though.

Seems like there should be more labels like "made in X of imported materials" or "mixed origin" or even spelling out what was done where.

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

#142

Post by HWR_14 »

LegitShady wrote: post #130
HWR_14 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of seafood is mislabled because it's hard to identify. Especially given that there might be a few random fish in a catch that is predominantly X. Meanwhile, tilapia is farmed. Hence misidentification there would be intentional.

tilapia actually refers to a large group of fish from the cichlids group.

That is interesting. It does still seem like most tilapia is farmed.

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

#143

Post by lupire »

riffraff wrote: post #136
armitron wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prosciutto di Parma is very specific and not parmaham, which is a generic designation applied to all sorts of crappy ham and meant to trick those that don't know better.

oh I see, I am surprised this is even allowed under EU regulation.

You think EU would ban selling a different product under a different name from the protected name?

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

#144

Post by ldoughty »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #56
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…

> I agree with the courts that "Product of the USA" okay... It's okay to import an animal, put them on a feed lot for a few days, then move them over to the slaughter house and claim "raised in the US"?

"raised in the US" in this sense has the same problem as "Product of the USA"..

Both are generic spectrums... "Product of the USA" is vastly more generic then "Raised in the USA"... you couldn't possibly make "Product of the USA" a common-folk-understandable term that means what most people think it means, because the spectrum is too large.... Does it mean the chicken was born in the USA, fed only seed found in the USA, which was grown in the USA, collected by a US business/individual (with no foreign labor or equipment)... etc.... By the end, no car could ever be a product of the USA because every engine or battery needs a component or element that is often imported.

"Raised in the USA" could be meaningfully quantified in a way people can understand... for instance: "spent the last 51% of its life in the USA prior to slaughter", or to support export: "Spend the last 51% of its life in the USA, prior to being sent to slaughter, not to exceed 7 days outside the USA"

Of course, people will bicker over the 51%... I don't like that either, but it's a "simplification" of the issue to a slogan, which is what all of this is really about anyways, if we don't provide quantifiable and factual statements like M-COOL partly provies (it's still ambiguous itself on the "raised" part, I think... though I've not read the full details)

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

#145

Post by talideon »

mac01021 wrote: post #139
talideon wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Europe, you're told everything, not just where it was finally processed/packaged. Produce is labelled not just down to a country level, but to individual farms, and often you'll see meat for sale in shops include not just the code for the farm, but the full name too. If I were to show you the jar of (blended) honey I have in my cupboard, it lists every country it came from. I haven't looked at any soup I have…

> Produce is labelled not just down to a country level, but to individual farms, and often you'll see meat for sale in shops include not just the code for the farm, but the full name too. Is this true across all of Europe? If not, what country are you in?

Ireland. To my knowledge, it's practiced elsewhere, though I can't point to a directive.

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

#146

Post by riffraff »

lupire wrote: post #143
riffraff wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh I see, I am surprised this is even allowed under EU regulation.

You think EU would ban selling a different product under a different name from the protected name?

yes, if the product can be confused and the name is close enough.

For example, you can no longer sell german cheese called "Parmesan", because it can be confused with Parmigiano.

Likewise, the italian wine called Tocai is no longer produced under this name, because it could be confused with the hungarian Tokaji, even tho they're quite different.

It is literally to fight the issue raised by OP.

If the product is very different than yeah, it would make no sense, but I do not know what dutch Parmaham is supposed to be.

If it's not trying to bank on the notoriety of Prosciutto di Parma, I do not understand why it's not called Amsterdham, which would be a really cool name.

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