Food claims

Food claims

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Up until the last decade or so, the vast majority of U.S. food shoppers mostly made our choices of what to buy based on three things. How much does it cost? Is it convenient? How does it taste?

That's it. But Andy Harig with the Food Marketing Institute told a Department of Agriculture conference awhile back that nowadays, instead of just cost convenience and taste, we're making buying choices based on a slew of claims about the items, claims we see on the labels like… Certified Humane, Natural, Certified Organic, cage-free, Free range, no added hormones, gluten free.”

And for meat,poultry and egg products: “Over the last 30 years we’ve seen a tremendous growth in the number of special statements and claims that are applied to products.” That's Jeff Canavan one of the people in the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service whose job it is to make sure all these claims we see on meat and poultry product labels are actually true. And Jeff, you get a lot of claims to check out. And again, most of them having to do with how the cows, chickens and pigs and such were raised.

“So this can include claims such as grass fed, free range, no antibiotics or raised without antibiotics and also certification claims related to how animals are raised, such as humanely raised.”

And you say most of these claims can be allowed on the labels, right? “Provided they're truthful and not misleading.

Okay. And it's Jeff's job, your job, many others in your office to determine if the claims are legit.

Previous ReportEstrus Cycles in Dairies
Next ReportGrass fed claim