010124 USDA Has New Laws on Water Content

Washington - The government wants supermarket shoppers to know how much water they're getting with their chicken.

Processors will be required to diclose the water content of raw meat and poultry products and justify why it's there, under rules that the Agriculture Department issued Friday. The rules primarily affect the chicken industry, because slaughtered birds are routinely chilled in cold water to stop bacteria growth.

“This step provides consumers with additional information about what's in the meat and poultry they purchase, helping them to make more informed choices,” said Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman.

The labeling requirement will add a penny per pound to the cost of chicken in the store, USDA officials said.

The cattle and hog industries, which have been struggling to regain market share lost to chicken products, have long argued that it was unfair for poultry to be sold with up to 8% added water weight when beef and pork cannot have any. Cattle and hog carcasses are chilled in freezers.

A federal judge ruled in 1997 that those standards were unfair and ordered USDA to come up with the new rules. Processors will be required to show that any added water is a consequence of antimicrobial treatment.

“We fought so hard for this because not only was the previous rule unfair to cattle producers, it was also unfair to consumers who were paying inflated prices for poultry due to added water weight,” said George Hall, president of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

The labeling rules won't take effect for a year so USDA has time to train personnel and develop a database on the natural moisture content of raw products.

The rules are among a series of regulations that are being rushed out in the final weeks of the Clinton presidency.

Other new rules the White House is considering would require nutrition labels on meat and force meat processors to systematically test plants for Listeria monocytogenes, a deadly pathogen found in hot dogs and cold cuts. Many plants already do the testing voluntarily.

A spokesman for the National Chicken Council, Richard Lobb, said the new labeling rules are unnecessary but unlikely to affect chicken sales. He said he didn't know whether the industry would try to get the incoming Bush administration to change the regulations.

An earlier requirement that packages of chicken contain instructions for safe handling did not hurt sales, he said.

“We have been very successful in the marketplace,” Lobb said.

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