Report: Americans Support COOL

July 13, 2007 - A Consumer Reports (CR) poll indicates that 92 percent of Americans want to know where their meat originates in light of recent domestic food scares involving peanut butter and lettuce.

"I was definitely shocked at how high these numbers were," the study's co-author, Urvashi Rangan, Ph.D., a senior scientist and policy analyst at Consumers Union, publisher of CR, said.

"It's much like a nutrition label or an ingredient label in that it needs to be part of the general information coming in about imported foods," she added.

CR polled more than 1,000 consumers between June 7 and June 10. The results come as the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) continues accepting public comments on its country-of-origin labeling (COOL) measure, and as consumer and producer groups express concern over recent food-safety issues involving pet food and other products from China.

American Meat Institute President J. Patrick Boyle said the survey results "underscore the value of the existing mandatory country-of-origin labeling rules for imported meat and poultry enforced by USDA."
Reprinted from meatingplace.com

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