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Food

Do Consumers Actually Care About Where Their Meat Comes From?

Mandatory meat-labeling laws are coming under fire for violating trade agreements, but do consumers really care about those labels anyway?
Photo via Flickr user anotherpintplease

Do shoppers really give a shit about where their meat comes from, or do they just want to savor their buttery steak and block out all thoughts of its pre-dinner plate existence?

That question has been brought to the fore in the debate that's raging over USDA-implemented meat-labeling laws that both Canada and Mexico say unfairly discriminate against their beef and pork exports to the US. Abbreviated "COOL," these meat-packaging rules require any beef or pork that enters the US through Canada or Mexico to sport a label designating the meat's country of origin. Neither Mexico nor Canada is cool with that—and neither is the World Trade Organization, which ruled against the US on Monday, stating that the COOL rules violate global trade laws requiring that imports be treated just as favorably as domestic products.

When it comes to human immigration from neighboring countries, the US has repeatedly made its "anti" stance pretty clear. Apparently, though, our xenophobic zeal extends to how consumers feel about meat, and is translatable into real numbers. Canada—whose meat, under COOL regulations, must be labeled "Born, raised and slaughtered in Canada"—claims that US meat-labeling rules have cost its cattle and hog industries more than $900 million. Those losses result from the increased costs incurred by Canadian meat producers segregation of livestock according to origin and the more intensive record-keeping needed to keep track of such sorting. In order to even the playing field, Canada has even threatened to counterattack by placing tariffs on important US imports such as chocolate, fruit, and potatoes. It's a bona fide food fight.

Across the pond, in the EU, COOL laws have gained traction since last year's horse meat scandal. Country-of-origin labels have been used on beef in the past, and by December will have to be applied to pork, sheep, goat and poultry, too. A comprehensive 2013 report compiled by the European Commission found that while a majority of consumers claimed to have a "strong interest" in origin labeling, shoppers were less interested in paying the premium meat prices that mandatory COOL laws could result in—an increase of anywhere from 15 to 50 percent.

At least one large American company recently wagered that its shoppers couldn't really care less about the origins of their meat. Giant Food, a major grocery store chain with 170 stores in four states, decided to do away with the quality-specific labels—Prime, Choice, and Select—that the USDA requires be applied to packages of beef, independently replacing them with the generic, meaningless sticker "USDA-Graded." "Isn't all beef sold in stores USDA graded, making that label useless?" shopper Louis Offen wondered in an article in the Washington Post. Giant stores, probably hoping to sell off an unusually high stock of low-grade meat, later removed the labels after being reprimanded by USDA regulators. Clearly, though, the company felt pretty sure that its customers wouldn't really care that they were buying shady meat.

It's hard to say how much meat-eaters really care about the quality of their rib-eyes. But as COOL laws go into effect in Europe later this year, it'll interesting to see if shoppers are willing to shell out a few extra bucks for a locally killed Bessie.