Californians Flock to Capitol Chicken Hearings

Feathers may fly in the halls of Congress today as Washington takes a crack at solving the fresh-versus-frozen controversy that has ruffled the nation’s poultry industry for years.

Even celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck is making the trip to testify.

Rep. Gary A. Condit (D-Modesto) organized today’s House Government Operations subcommittee hearing to air complaints from his chicken-producing constituents; they claim federal regulations fail to distinguish between fresh and frozen birds in supermarket meat counters.

Former and current U.S. Department of Agriculture officials, consumer advocates, a California contingent of poultry producers and other interested parties are scheduled to appear.

“It is not fair for U.S. consumers to buy a chicken labeled ‘fresh,’ ” Condit said, “and not realize that just a few hours before the chicken could have been used as a cannonball.”

As reported in The Times last month, California producers want to define “fresh” as any bird refrigerated and stored at 26 degrees or higher. The effort received unanimous support from the Legislature in Sacramento and Gov. Pete Wilson last year. Yet federal courts have thwarted the implementation of the regulation, claiming it would interfere with interstate commerce.

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A coalition of trade groups representing the leading poultry-producing states--including Arkansas and Georgia--successfully filed suit to overturn the California law. An appeal is pending and will be heard sometime this month.

The Southeastern producers--who truck their broilers to the West Coast--prefer the current federal definition that says a chicken is fresh if it is refrigerated at temperatures above zero degrees. Their representatives claim that the average temperature of Southeastern chickens reaching the West Coast is in the mid-20-degree range and deny that the birds are frozen during transport.

Caught in the middle of the dispute is the Clinton Administration’s USDA. For months, department officials have denied that they favor Southeastern chicken producers, particularly those from the President’s home state of Arkansas, in regulations and inspections.

“(Fresh versus frozen) is a very serious topic,” said Mary Dixon, USDA spokeswoman in Washington. “The issue is under discussion and review here. We did not develop the original policy but we are definitely questioning the policy.”

Deputy Secretary Richard Rominger, the No. 2 official at USDA, will testify at the hearing. Dixon points out that the presence of Rominger, former director of California’s Department of Food and Agriculture, indicates how seriously USDA is approaching the session.

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The key witness in the dispute is a former top USDA official who attempted to address the issue six years ago.

Lester Crawford, administrator of the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service from 1986 to 1991, said that several regional poultry producers, including some non-Californians, petitioned his agency in 1988 to legally define “fresh” as chicken refrigerated and held at 26 degrees or above.

After considering the request, Crawford’s staff issued a policy memo that supported the 26-degree definition. However, it was intended only as a labeling guideline and not as a formal change in the federal Poultry Products Inspection Act.

Shortly thereafter, the major national chicken producers from the Southeast pleaded their case with Crawford’s superior, Agriculture Secretary Richard Lyng.

“I was present at the meeting,” Crawford recalled in a recent telephone interview. “The national chicken shippers said the policy memo would create chaos in the marketplace and would disparage their product. . . . Lyng clearly told me to reach agreement with these people and that it should be up to the National Broiler Council (an industry-wide trade group with members on both sides of the issue) to present some form of standard. But we could not reach a compromise.”

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Crawford said the policy memo was withdrawn in August, 1988. “Fresh” has been defined as anything above zero degrees ever since.

Rather than issue a policy memo, which is not binding, Crawford said that in retrospect his agency should have gone through the formal regulatory process and amended the Poultry Products Inspection Act.

“I do think we should define the middle (temperature range),” said Crawford, currently executive director of the Assn. of American Veterinary Medical Colleges in Washington. “We know that fresh is anything above 26 degrees and that frozen is anything below zero. But what about the range from zero to 26 degrees? I think it should be called ‘fresh frozen’ or some other appropriate name.”

Puck thinks the word “fresh” is much easier to describe and says the current stalemate is misleading the public.

“That people can call something with a temperature of 1 degree ‘fresh’ is ridiculous,” he said. “At 25 degrees chicken gets hard, frozen. And when you thaw the meat the cells break after converting from ice to water. And that’s why you get a lot of water from frozen chickens. The texture becomes dry, with much less taste. There should be a choice between frozen and fresh chicken.”

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Puck said that the California Poultry Industry Federation is paying his expenses to travel from Los Angeles to Washington, but he is not getting an appearance fee.

“Even if I had to pay for everything I wouldn’t care,” said Puck, no stranger to quarrels with the federal government.

(He was initially prevented from using the word “pizza” to label his signature line of California-style frozen pizzas in 1989 because the pies had no tomato sauce. The issue was eventually resolved when Puck agreed to put a spoonful of fresh tomatoes, basil and olive on each pizza.)

Puck said that if some producers want to sell chicken below 26 degrees, they should charge less for the product.

“When you go out to buy something leather,” he said, “you don’t want plastic.”