meat labeling

The USDA's meat safety agency aims to publish its proposed rule on cultivated meat labels this year, roughly three years after it asked consumers if names such as "steak" should be allowed, said a spokesperson on Wednesday.

Closing a loophole, the Agriculture Department proposed on Monday to allow packages to carry the "Made in the USA" or "Product of USA" label only if the meat, poultry and eggs in them were born, raised, slaughtered and processed in the United States. Consumer and activist farm groups applauded the proposal while the meat industry said it may violate trade rules.

Three-and-a-half years after it received a cattle group's petition to define "meat" and "beef" as referring only to the flesh of food-bearing animals, the USDA said it has no authority over the labeling of alternative proteins from plants and insects. The FDA regulates those products, said the Food Safety and Inspection Service, and when it "is made aware that a non-animal product is being labeled as 'meat' or 'beef,' FSIS refers such information to FDA."

With cell-cultured meat getting closer to the marketplace, the USDA's meat safety agency is asking consumers how the high-tech products should be labeled and whether using names such as "pork loin" or "steak" to describe them should be permitted.

Amid complaints that the labels are deceptive, the USDA will undertake a top-to-bottom review of the Product of USA labels that appear on packages of meat, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Thursday. In addition to identifying meat from animals raised in the United States, the label can currently be used on foreign meat that is processed in U.S. plants.