{"id":120,"date":"2007-08-17T21:56:38","date_gmt":"2007-08-17T21:56:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brucefinley.com\/counter-terrorism\/food-labels-quiet-revolution\/"},"modified":"2008-01-07T17:30:16","modified_gmt":"2008-01-07T17:30:16","slug":"food-labels-quiet-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/globalization\/food-labels-quiet-revolution\/","title":{"rendered":"Food Labels’ Quiet Revolution"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>While implementation of a country-of-origin law languishes, some stores take the initiative.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Melynda Saldenais surveys grocery aisles composing labels that<br \/>\nreveal where food comes from and how it is grown.<\/p>\n<p>Descriptions “like luscious and succulent” leave her cold,<br \/>\nSaldenais said this week in a central Denver store as she reviewed<br \/>\nher literary efforts. But she’d love to be able to write<br \/>\n“China-free” – if a new company initiative pans out.<\/p>\n<p>“Our beef is imported from Australia,” reads the label she wrote<br \/>\nfor frozen burgers, “where cattle roam freely on lush green<br \/>\npastures. They graze the way nature intended on 250 species of<br \/>\nnative grasses and herbs.”<\/p>\n<p>Saldenais and her company, the Boulder-based national chain Wild<br \/>\nOats Markets Inc., along with its future acquirer Whole Foods<br \/>\nMarket and other upscale grocers, are responding to a nascent<br \/>\nrevolution: Americans are demanding to know the origins of every<br \/>\ntomato, strawberry and steak.<\/p>\n<p>Tainted food scares and increased U.S. reliance on imported food –<br \/>\nfrom Europe, Mexico, China – drive the growing demands for details<br \/>\npreviously kept secret.<\/p>\n<p>Congress ordered country-of-origin labeling in 2002. But the<br \/>\ngovernment, under pressure from mainstream grocers and meatpackers,<br \/>\nhas failed to implement the law.<\/p>\n<p>The 2007 farm bill pending before U.S. senators would again order<br \/>\nthe government to act.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Wild Oats and Whole Foods are embracing what customers<br \/>\nwant.<\/p>\n<p>They’re using auditors and inspectors to investigate sources of<br \/>\ningredients in all of the products on their shelves and then<br \/>\nproviding detailed labels.<\/p>\n<p>“What we’re seeing in this country is increasing consumer concern<br \/>\nabout where and how their food is produced. … The stores that are<br \/>\nlabeling now, they see the right end of the law,” said Joe<br \/>\nMendelson, legal director at the Center for Food Safety, an<br \/>\nadvocacy group.<\/p>\n<p>Imports accounted for 14 percent of American food consumption in<br \/>\n2005, compared with 7 percent in the mid-1980s.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the new labeling is somewhat confusing. A Whole Foods<br \/>\nplacard at the Cherry Creek store promotes “natural Moroccan<br \/>\nquality” salmon from “Sussex County, New Jersey” that is<br \/>\n“produced by a company committed to sustainable fishing<br \/>\npractices” to ensure “the health of the oceans.”<\/p>\n<p>Whole Foods shoppers “appreciate more, rather than less<br \/>\ninformation\/education,” spokeswoman Ashley Hawkins said.<\/p>\n<p>Saldenais, 39, meets regularly with growers, ranchers and<br \/>\nexecutives to glean facts and check the accuracy of their claims.<\/p>\n<p>But the origins of some meat, frozen fruit and other foods at Wild<br \/>\nOats still aren’t labeled as precisely as the country-of-origin<br \/>\nlabeling law would require, company officials concede.<\/p>\n<p>The push to reveal origins is leading to closer scrutiny of an<br \/>\nincreasingly global supply chain, said Dan Heiges, Wild Oats<br \/>\ndirector of standards.<\/p>\n<p>Auditors recently exposed a potato-chip maker who had switched to a<br \/>\ncheaper Chinese source of granulated garlic without notifying Wild<br \/>\nOats.<\/p>\n<p>Vegetable snacks containing ingredients from China recently were<br \/>\nyanked from shelves after inspectors found traces of salmonella.<\/p>\n<p>Wild Oats now requires suppliers of its private-label products to<br \/>\ncertify whether any ingredients come from China or other countries<br \/>\nassociated with risks, spokeswoman Sonja Tuitele said. Suppliers<br \/>\nare told to find alternative ingredients in a new initiative aimed<br \/>\nat declaring food “China-free,” Tuitele said.<\/p>\n<p>“We would love to be able to tell our customers that, or at least<br \/>\nidentify products we sell that do not have any ingredients from<br \/>\nChina,” she said.<\/p>\n<p>“Whether this is possible or not remains to be seen because<br \/>\ningredients from China are so pervasive in our food supply.”<\/p>\n<p>For years, studies have shown Americans favor precise labeling on<br \/>\nfood, for safety and to “buy local.” Last month, a Consumers<br \/>\nUnion poll found 92 percent of Americans want country-of-origin<br \/>\nlabeling. A Colorado State University study in 2002 found consumers<br \/>\nwould even pay more for carefully-labeled food.<\/p>\n<p>“I’m pregnant. It’s really important for me to know that food is<br \/>\nsafe and clean,” Tannaz Walker, 31, said while reading a yogurt<br \/>\nlabel at a Wild Oats east of Boulder recently with her 1-year-old,<br \/>\nAndrew, perched atop her cart.<\/p>\n<p>She picked up a “New York steak” made of “grass-fed” beef,<br \/>\npresumably from the United States. Or was it?<\/p>\n<p>“Well, goodness, it’s a ‘New York steak.’ I hope it’s from the<br \/>\nU.S.,” she said, as her son began to stir in his seat.<\/p>\n<p>Further investigation showed it came from Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While implementation of a country-of-origin law languishes, some stores take the initiative. Melynda Saldenais surveys grocery aisles composing labels that reveal where food comes from and how it is grown. Descriptions “like luscious and succulent” leave her cold, Saldenais said this week in a central Denver store as she reviewed her literary efforts. But she’d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,16,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food-supply","category-globalization","category-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}