WASHINGTON — The Produce Marketing Association teamed up with the U.S. Department of Agriculture last week in a webinar that highlighted retail challenges and opportunities in complying with country-of-origin labeling.
Since last June, the USDA has processed 3,871 reviews with approximately 300 covered commodity SKUs per store. The USDA plans to complete 12,471 reviews by Sept. 30.
Schnuck Markets, St. Louis, has had audits in most of its stores, Mike O'Brian, vice president of produce, said during the webinar.
“I want to compliment the USDA and their common sense approach and their willingness to work with the industry to make this law as painless as possible,” O'Brian said.
“We've had COOL audits now in many of our stores — we are in seven states — and we've had audits in all seven of the states in which we operate. We've found the auditors to be very professional, very thorough, but also very accommodating and I want to compliment the USDA in being so up front in reaching out to the industry so that we can learn from them and improve all of our processes.”
USDA agreed that the collaborative effort is important.
“Every time we found an issue at retail or the supply chain and we brought that to the attention to that particular retailer or supplier, we've really enjoyed a good cooperation with them to bring things into compliance,” said Craig Morris, deputy administrator of USDA Agricultural Marketing Service's Livestock and Seed Program.
“I think in large measure, that's a testament to the approach that we've taken here at the USDA in trying to be very open with what the requirements are and at the same time, trying to be very open with what we are finding. And as long as that relationship is maintained, I don't see any reason for us to change that in the future.”
On a national basis, 33% of stores reviewed were in full compliance with COOL regulations, which means that everything in that store covered by COOL was correctly labeled, and that accompanying supplier records and other requested information was appropriate and aligned with what was labeled.
“Of course, there's room for improvement, but with the variability of all of the items that are eligible for country of origin, and the stocking and shelving along with the record-keeping along those lines, we think coming out of the block the first time through, that's a commendable benchmark to start from,” said Martin O'Connor, chief of the standards, analysis and technology branch of the Livestock and Seed Program.
High-performing stores did well. Sixty-nine percent had 97% of covered commodities properly labeled, or fewer than 10 covered commodities that were not properly labeled. And, 87% of stores had at least 92% of commodities properly labeled.
Of the stores that were not compliant with COOL, 76% had no information about country of origin available at all. Eleven percent had inaccurate COOL information, or conflicting signs at the store level.
O'Connor said that much of the non-compliance comes from the growth of locally grown foods, where retailers not specifying exactly where the produce was grown.
“Since no country-of-origin information was [the] largest [non-compliance], we wanted to break it down into each of the commodities to see where the predominance of concern lied,” O'Connor said. “Vegetables take up a majority of that. Primarily in the summer time, we got a lot of locally grown produce out there and a lot of those just said, ‘locally grown.’ And that is not sufficient … information to comply with COOL.”
Of the non-compliance violations, 39.8% affected vegetables, 14.7% fruit and 2.8% nuts and ginseng. While nuts and ginseng take up a small share of perishable agricultural commodities, non-compliance was widespread with these items, with 95% of nuts and ginseng not compliant. Retailers could take the opportunity to increase their overall compliance rate by ensuring that these items carry proper COOL information.
“Even though it's a small component of the overall numbers, it still shows the biggest area of improvement could be made in labeling of those products,” O'Connor said of nuts and ginseng.
Other specifications O'Connor clarified were that PLU stickers that contain country-of-origin declarations without supplier information are not considered “pre-labeled,” and that retailers must retain records that include country-of-origin and supplier info.
“This is a new program, so we just want to make sure that it's an issue that people take into consideration,” O'Connor said. The documents “can be at headquarters, or some other office location, just as long as we can get that info within five business days.”
Retail challenges that were highlighted included no origin declarations on store-portioned or -packaged items such as fresh-cut fruits, store-bagged green beans and trayed tomatoes. Packaged herbs and specialty produce were also more likely to not carry origin information.
Inaccurate origin declarations, and abbreviations and variant spellings that failed to unmistakably indicate country of origin were also listed in the top three challenges. O'Connor cited one example where a sign might state that bananas came from one country, but the sticker on the actual banana stating another country.
Examples of abbreviations and variant spellings not unmistakably indicating origin included “locally grown,” or “Pacific Northwest.” Something along the lines of “Connecticut Grown,” however, would be compliant, O'Connor said.
O'Connor also said that a majority of PLUs labeled with country of origin have been helpful for consumers and are compliant with regulations.
In a survey given at the end of the webinar, 79% of participants chose unlabeled bulk product as the biggest COOL-related compliance issue for stores. Produce clerk errors came in next at 16%, and 4% selected record-keeping as the biggest issue.
