Scrutiny of Meat Labels Like Grass-Fed Misses Green Expectations

Federal regulators are giving more direction for using terms like “grass-fed” and “free-range” to sell meat and poultry, but it’s not enough to appease sustainability activists.

New guidance issued last week by the US Department of Agriculture focuses on voluntary marketing claims that highlight how livestock are raised and the sustainability of associated land use. It emphasizes the need for more robust documentation to back up animal-raising or environmental claims and encourages companies to substantiate their claims with third-party certifications.

The update to guidance from 2019 comes as companies across industries are facing lawsuits over alleged greenwashing, where plaintiffs say products that are presented as environmentally friendly lack support for such claims. The meat industry, in particular, is on notice after New York’s attorney general sued JBS—the largest beef processor in the world—for alleged greenwashing earlier this year.

Encouraging meat and poultry companies to submit more information about their claims is beneficial, but that only goes so far, said Ben Lilliston, director of rural strategies and climate change at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a non-profit focused on sustainable food systems.

“It’s good that more information is now required to be submitted, but that is only part of the picture when it comes to ensuring labels are not misleading,” Lilliston said.

Beyond the meat industry, businesses and activists alike have been awaiting more clarity from the Federal Trade Commission’s planned update of its Green Guides, marketing advice intended to make sure corporate claims about the environmental impacts of their products aren’t misleading. The guides haven’t been updated for more than a decade.

Having different federal agencies issue a range of advice about environmental marketing could be confusing for businesses, said Jeff Greenbaum, an advertising lawyer and managing partner at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz who is also a member of the International Advertising Association’s board.

“One of the problems that the market faces right now is that we don’t have sufficiently clear guidance about what these claims mean and what you need to do to substantiate them,” Greenbaum said.

Level Playing Field

The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service reviews documentation submitted by companies supporting their animal-raising and environment-related marketing claims. Businesses can only use those claims on meat and poultry labels if they are approved by the agency.

The new guidance “will help to level the playing field for businesses who are truthfully using these claims and ensure people can trust the labels when they purchase meat and poultry products,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement last week.

“USDA continues to deliver on its commitment to fairness and choice for both farmers and consumers, and that means supporting transparency and high-quality standards,” a spokesperson for the department’s safety unit said in an email.

The agency pledged to take enforcement actions against businesses making false claims about antibiotics in meat products. The safety unit conducted a study to assess claims about meat from animals such as cattle that are “raised without antibiotics.” The study found antibiotic residues in about 20% of the liver and kidney samples tested from cattle that were marketed as raised without antibiotics, according to a press release.

To maintain consumer trust, it’s important for the meat industry “to ensure that labeling claims are held to a high standard,” said Ethan Lane, vice president of government affairs at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. “We support third-party verification to back up these labeling claims and ensure consumer confidence in these labels,” Lane said.

Third-Party Certifiers

Independent certifying organizations aim to help ensure meat and poultry marketing claims are supported. The USDA “strongly encourages” businesses to use third-party certification to substantiate claims like “grass-fed,” the guidelines say.

But government guidance recommending certification isn’t enough, according to the American Grassfed Association, a non-profit that requires meat producers to meet farm standards and pass inspections to use their certification.

“Put some teeth in these things, make it mandatory,” said Carrie Balkcom, the association’s executive director. “We need to make sure the consumer knows what they’re getting,” she added.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, said it’s concerned about the emphasis on third-party certifiers that the new USDA guidelines promote.

“Meat, eggs, and dairy will never be sustainable, no matter what kind of greenwashed certification labels are slapped onto the packages,” PETA said in a statement.

The group has previously taken issue with organizations such as the Global Animal Partnership, which runs run labeling programs to back up animal welfare and sustainability claims. A 2021 PETA investigation led Pennsylvania’s state police to bring animal cruelty charges against workers at Plainville Farms, a former GAP-certified site.

PETA urged a handful of animal welfare groups that endorse the animal partnership to cut ties with the organization, according to a letter sent this week.

The partnership “does not tolerate and unequivocally condemns the cruel treatment of any animal in our program,” the labeling group said in a statement on its website in response to the Plainville Farms investigation. The organization said in a separate statement that it “strongly supports” the updated USDA guidelines.

“Third-party certification is the gold standard for verifying animal production practices,” it said. “We recognize that USDA would need to conduct rulemaking to impose a third-party certification requirement across all animal production systems and therefore do not join in the spate of criticism directed at the announcement.”