Dive Brief:
- Mandatory labeling for tenderized beef products will not go into effect until about 2018 because the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) and the White House Office of Management and Budget could not reach an agreement by December 31, 2014, as expected.
- The concern is that the tools and devices used to soften the meat are known to produce pathogens that can cause foodborne illnesses and may push these pathogens from the surface of the meat down to the center, which may not always be cooked enough to destroy the pathogens..
- When mandatory labeling is issued, food manufacturers will have to print instructions on the packaging for meat products that illustrate the best ways to cook the meat to avoid foodborne illnesses.
Dive Insight:
If the USDA and OMB could have coordinated the mandatory labeling by year-end 2014, which was initially proposed in June 2013, regulations could have gone into effect in 2016. But because new labeling laws are implemented every two years, the earliest consumers could see differences in tenderized meat packaging would be 2018.
According to Christopher Waldrop, director of the Food Policy Institute at the Consumer Federation of America, the USDA is mostly to blame for holding up the process too long at the department level before sending it to the OMB, who he says could have turned it around quickly. But because the USDA did not submit the draft of the proposed labeling rules to the OMB until November 21, the regulations ran out of time for 2014 approval.
Costco, which sold meat that contributed to a 2012 E. coli outbreak and another in 2013, began producing its own meat labels that say the meat is "blade tenderized" and instruct consumers to cook meat to an internal temperature of 160 degrees.