On March 2, 2016, the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture released a final rule to remove beef and pork from mandatory country of origin labeling requirements (COOL). AMS issued the regulation to conform with the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016. The final rule became effective immediately. The repeal of COOL for [...]
On January 21, 2016, Erik Lieberman of Lieberman PLLC hosted a webinar to review the final grind log rule issued by the Food Safety and Inspection Service of USDA on December 21, 2015. The rule requires retail stores and official establishments to maintain records of grinding activity of raw beef products. The webinar replay is [...]
On May 13, 2015, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released a final rule (the “Final Rule”) imposing new labeling requirements for raw and partially-cooked needle and blade tenderized beef, including beef products injected with a marinade or solution. The labeling requirements do not apply if the [...]
On December 31, 2014, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) published a final rule requiring the use of descriptive designations as part of the product name on the labels of raw meat and poultry products that contain added solutions and do not meet a standard of identity. [...]
On October 20, 2014, a World Trade Organization (WTO) Dispute Settlement Panel (DSP) issued a report which ruled that the revised Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) regulation finalized by USDA in May 2013 (2013 Final Rule) did not make the COOL laws and regulations as applied to beef and pork compliant with the Technical Barriers to [...]
On September 2, 2014, the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture published a notice (Notice 43-14) to enforcement staff announcing that beginning on September 29, 2014, samples of raw ground beef products collected in consumer-ready packaging (with a label bearing a nutrition facts panel) for testing for Shiga toxin-producing E. [...]
On July 31, 2014, Erik Lieberman of Lieberman PLLC conducted a webinar on the regulation proposed by USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service on July 16, which requires retail stores and official establishments to maintain new records containing the identity and contact information of suppliers of source materials used in the preparation of raw ground [...]
On August 13, 2014, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture published in the Federal Register a notice announcing that it will implement new traceback procedures when FSIS or another Federal or State agency finds raw ground beef or bench trim presumptive positive for Escherichia coli O157:H7. FSIS is [...]
After a period of increased sampling and testing for species of products from Iceland, Ireland, Poland, the United Kingdom, and Northern Ireland, as well as beef trimmings from Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua and Uruguay, the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture has resumed normal sampling [...]
On July 16, 2014, the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture released a proposed rule to require that all official establishments and retail stores that grind raw beef products must keep records that disclose the identity and contact information of the supplier of all source materials that they use in [...]
