USDA’s Revised Food Label Guidelines Insufficient to Protect Consumers, Animals

Washington, DC—The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) is extremely disappointed by the revised meat and poultry guidelines released yesterday by the US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS). Although the USDA touts that these updated guidelines will protect consumers from “false and misleading labels,” AWI believes that the department should require — not merely “strongly encourage” — companies to use independent third-party certifiers to substantiate claims such as “humanely raised,” “pasture raised,” and “raised without antibiotics.”

“While the revised guidelines are a small step in the right direction, they remain insufficient to combat misleading label claims used to market meat and poultry products,” said Zack Strong, acting director and senior attorney for AWI’s Farmed Animal Program. “When consumers see claims such as ‘humanely raised,’ they expect that the animals involved received better care than the industry status quo. The USDA continues to allow companies to essentially make up their own definitions with no repercussions — harming animals, consumers, and higher-welfare farmers.”

AWI has issued multiple reports over the last decade documenting how the USDA routinely allows producers to manipulate the system by making higher-welfare claims on their packages and charging a premium without improving the treatment of animals raised under their care.

Last year, a group of US senators sent a letter urging the department to fulfill its obligation under the Federal Meat Inspection Act and the Poultry Products Inspection Act to protect the public from misleading food labels. The letter cited a recent AWI report, which found that 85% of analyzed animal welfare claims on meat and poultry products lacked adequate substantiation.

In 2016, AWI petitioned the FSIS to clarify the “free range” claim beyond “continuous, free access to the outside” which has been interpreted to mean anything from birds having easy access to large, grassy fields to birds crammed indoors with only a small exit onto a patch of bare concrete outside. Now, more than eight years later, the FSIS has responded to AWI’s petition by refusing to change the definition of “free range.”

The FSIS did more clearly define “pasture raised” in its updated guidelines, responding to a petition filed by Perdue Farms and supported by AWI. Under the guidelines, pasture raised now means that the majority of an animal’s life was spent on “pasture” (i.e., land mostly “rooted in vegetative cover with grass or other plants”). However, the FSIS still does not require companies to submit specific documentation demonstrating compliance with the new definition. Instead, the agency only strongly encourages producers to do so.

Similarly, companies are only strongly encouraged — not required — to support “raised without antibiotics” claims by instituting their own sampling program to test for antibiotics or using a third-party certifier, despite recent sampling by the FSIS that found antibiotic residues in about 20% of cattle destined for the “raised without antibiotics market.” The agency notified the companies of its findings but did not release their names.

Overall, the updated guidelines continue to allow companies to use their own documentation to substantiate claims instead of using independent third-party certifiers, such as Animal Welfare Approved, Global Animal Partnership, and Certified Humane, which adhere to higher, more holistic standards. For instance, producers who submit a simple statement to the FSIS that their animals were fed vegetarian diets are entitled to use the label “humanely raised.”  

According to AWI’s research, however, a majority of consumers who frequently purchase meat or poultry products believe that producers should not be allowed to set their own definitions for claims about how farm animals are raised and that farms should be inspected to verify such claims.

“The USDA’s updated guidelines are largely meaningless in effecting real change,” concluded Strong.

To help consumers avoid contributing to animal suffering, AWI publishes “A Consumer’s Guide to Food Labels and Animal Welfare.”