Last month, USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service
("AMS") withdrew its standards for the marketing
claims "grass fed" and "naturally raised,"
marking a departure from a previous service offered by the agency.
AMS maintains many standards related to quality, condition, class,
and packaging of carcass beef, shell eggs, poultry, and other
commodities, and federal law gives AMS authority to develop,
maintain, and apply these standards. However, Congress has given
AMS only authority to develop marketing claims standards in a few
limited instances, such as those associated with organic products.
As AMS recently explained, the agency verifies nearly 200
marketing claims, including controversial claims such as
"non-GMO," but only the claims "grass fed" and
"naturally raised" had an AMS standard. This, according
to AMS, caused people to "wrongly think[] AMS had standing
statutory authority to determine what standards would merit those
other, very controversial claims," such as non-GMO. In fact,
AMS conceded that it "does not have authority to regulate
those terms." Instead, AMS's role is to assist firms by
auditing processes such as grass fed, "providing transparency
to the claims [firms] make by making their standards available on
the AMS website and providing the marketplace with
assurance that firms are adhering to their
standards...."
The grass-fed marketing claim standard will remain
on the agency's website for reference, but the withdrawal means
there is no longer a federal standard defining "grass
fed." AMS's withdrawal of the two marketing claims
standards has no impact on a manufacturer's ability to apply to
USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service ("FSIS")
for a grass-fed claim on its label. FSIS already allows companies
to make marketing animal raising claims (such as "grass
fed") based on documentation supplied with the label
application, and the agency will continue to do so.
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