WASHINGTON, D.C. — A USDA final rule published by the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) on Dec. 31 requires new labeling requirements for raw meat and poultry products with added solutions. The rule brings added-solutions meat labeling in line with mechanically tenderized beef labels, according to the agency.

The rule will take effect in 2016, according to USDA procedure for meat and poultry labeling. Product labels will then contain a “descriptive designation” including the percentage of added solution and the individual ingredients in that solution.

“Consumers’ choices of meat and poultry products with added solutions with a high sodium content could have unintended health consequences if labels of these products were inadequate in revealing the information of added ingredients to the consumers,” according to the FSIS.

Some advocates applauded the labeling change. “Consumers shouldn’t be tricked into paying chicken (or pork or beef) per-pound prices for water and salt,” said Michael Jacobson, director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

But public statements from meat industry representatives downplayed the ruling’s impact. Such information is already available on labels, according to the National Chicken Council.

Consumer advocacy groups, and some poultry processors, focused on products without added solutions, pushed for the new rule. The FSIS determined that meat consumers could be misled, since some current labels do not “clearly and conspicuously” show the product contains an added solution.

“A market failure exists when raw products with added solutions are misbranded and information is not readily available to the consumer,” according to the FSIS.

The future required description can be separated from the product’s common name. “FSIS made this change to make clear that the descriptive designation is required to be part of the product name but does not need to be on the same line as the rest of the product name,” according to the final rule.

Mechanically tenderized beef

The new label, taking effect Jan. 1, 2016, brings solutions-added meat labels more in line with current requirements for mechanically tenderized (MT) beef, according to FSIS. Food safety groups are advocating changes to MT beef labeling, but no changes were announced.

A Dec. 30 statement from the Center for Foodborne Illness and Prevention, which supports a “mechanically tenderized” label, called for the rule: “Given that treated MT beef does not look different from non-treated product, labeling is the only way to identify the products as mechanically tenderized, while providing consumers with information about safe food handling and preparation.”

More labeling is unnecessary, according to the American Meat Institute (AMI), which opposes the proposed MT beef rule.

“Conveying the fact that a product has been subject to mechanical tenderization, and therefore consumers should prepare the product differently than if it is intact, can be accomplished just as easily through means other than requiring that term’s inclusion in the product name,” stated past AMI comments to the USDA.

Despite a year-end push by food safety advocates, the proposed USDA rule failed to be cleared by the Office of Budget and Management before Dec. 31. That makes 2018 the earliest any label change for MT beef products could occur, under USDA uniform compliance date requirements for meat labeling.

USDA-funded research conducted at Auburn University from 2008-12 concluded there is a small potential for bacterial contamination from mechanical tenderizers. It is not clear whether labeling products as “mechanically tenderized” in the product name would keep consumers safer.