USDA Puts Freeze on ‘Misleading’ Turkey Labels
Just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has cried “Fowl!” about Perdue Farms’ plan to use the term “never frozen” on some of its extremely cold turkeys.
In a letter to the giant Maryland poultry processor, the USDA ordered the company to remove the claim from its labels on any raw birds because it might be “false or misleading.”
Robert C. Post, director of USDA’s labeling and additives policy division, said in the letter that the government feared consumers would assume the product was “fresh”--in other words, that it had always had an internal temperature of 26 degrees Fahrenheit or above.
As it happens, Perdue and other processors often store such birds at 1 degree.
News of this week’s ruling pleased the California Poultry Industry Federation, whose members produce primarily fresh turkeys.
“When you take a product down and get it as hard as the top of a table, it didn’t make sense to us to call it ‘never frozen,’ ” said Duane Herrick, assistant general manager of Zacky Farms, a big Fresno producer that distributes fresh and frozen birds in the West. “We were amazed that anyone would come up with it.”
The issue indicates continuing confusion about a debate that has ruffled the nation’s poultry industry for years.
Last December, after years of campaigning by California producers, a stricter federal rule went into effect. As before, it required a “frozen” label for turkeys stored at zero and below. In a change, birds could be labeled “fresh” only if stored at 26 degrees or above. In between--for poultry stored at zero to 26 degrees--lay a no-bird’s land, as it were, for which there would be no labeling requirement. “Fresh” could not be used, but other wording could, the government said, without offering specifics.
Richard Auletta, an outside spokesman for Perdue, said the company had gotten approval a few months ago from the USDA to use the “never frozen” term and had gone “ahead in good faith” with plans to so label a limited number of birds for the Thanksgiving holiday. After receiving the letter this week, Auletta said, the company “immediately destroyed the bags with ‘never frozen.’ ”
Andrew Solomon, a USDA spokesman, said the agency had no record that Perdue sought formal approval for the label. Approval would have been required because “never frozen” is a claim, he added.
Perdue distributes only to retail outlets east of the Mississippi.
In 1994, California processors led the charge to prod USDA to alter its longtime rule that poultry chilled to between zero and 40 degrees could be labeled as fresh. California producers urged that the agency raise the “fresh” threshold to 26 degrees, from zero.
That proposal angered large Southeast poultry producers, notably powerful Tyson Foods in Arkansas. Because of the long distances their birds are trucked to reach California markets, they must be kept colder to prevent spoilage. Southeast processors viewed the proposed change as an attempt by California farmers to curb competition.
Undaunted, the California Legislature passed a law enacting the revised temperature regulation. The National Broiler Council and the Arkansas Poultry Federation sued, arguing that a state law cannot be tougher than a federal regulation, and won.
After further wrangling, the California poultry industry agreed in 1996 to stop insisting that chicken stored between zero and 26 degrees be labeled “hard chilled.” (That compromise helped pave the way for December’s ruling.) Meanwhile, it hammered its point home by staging a bowling competition in Washington using rock-hard chickens chilled to below 26 degrees as balls.
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Redefining ‘Fresh’
The U.S. Department of Agriculture in December issued stricter rules regarding the labeling of turkeys and other poultry as “fresh”.
If poultry was ever: Below 0 degrees F
Then it was be labeled as:
Before Dec 17, 1997: Frozen or previously frozen
Now: Frozen or previously frozen
*
If poultry was ever: Between 0 degrees F and 26 degrees F
Then it was be labeled as:
Before Dec 17, 1997: Fresh
Now: There is no labeling requirement, but the product may not be labeled as fresh.
*
If poultry was ever: 26 degrees F and above
Then it was be labeled as:
Before Dec 17, 1997: Fresh
Now: Fresh
