Industry lawsuit against meat origin labels dismissed

WASHINGTON — A meat industry lawsuit that claimed federal labeling rules violated the constitutional right to free speech has been dismissed.

The industry sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2013 over new rules that required product packages to list the individual countries where animals were born, raised and slaughtered.

That First Amendment challenge failed at the federal district court and appeals court levels. The Feb. 9 notice of dismissal ends the suit. It leaves the remaining issues in the case to the World Trade Organization. The WTO has said that the labeling rules place an unfair burden on meat producers in Canada and Mexico.

The USDA has appealed that decision.

So-called country of origin labeling or COOL has been a hotbutton issue for U.S. ranchers and farmers, their foreign competitors, consumers and meat processors and packagers.

U.S. ranchers and farmers hoped to maintain and improve their market shares through “buy American” initiatives that could arise from consumers’ ability to see where their meat came from. Foreign competitors feared discrimination and loss of business. Processors and packagers worried about increased production costs arising from detailed tracking and reporting of the source of meat.

Some in the agriculture community feared threats by the Canadian government that it would apply tariffs to hundreds of American-made products if the country of origin labeling rules were not rescinded.

The free speech lawsuit was led by the American Meat Institute and the North American Meat Institute, which includes Cargill and Hormel Foods. The suit claimed that the government did not have the constitutional right to force the meat industry to label products against their will.

A Cargill spokesman declined to comment on the COOL suit dismissal, deferring to the meat institute as the industry’s official representative on the issue.