New U.S. label regulation getting pushback from Iowa producers

(Farmscape) The CEO of Iowa Pork says pork producers in his state will be looking for clarity as details of new voluntary U.S. country of origin labelling regulation are explored.

On March 11th U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced voluntary country of original labelling, or V-COOL, will come into effect by January 1, 2026.

The new labelling regulations differ from mandatory country of origin labeling, which was ruled illegal by the World trade Organization and abandoned by the U.S. in that they allow the voluntary use of "Product of USA" or “Made in USA” label claims on meat, poultry and egg products only when they are derived from animals born, raised, slaughtered and processed in the United States.

Iowa Pork CEO Pat McGonegle says the announcement has created confusion.

“Iowa Pork's position on mandatory country of origin labelling, we're not in favor of it,” McGonegle said while attending Manitoba Pork’s Annual General Meeting in Winnipeg.

“This voluntary proposal that's come out in early March, we're still evaluating that. But for the most part because we see ourselves as a North American industry, particularly in Iowa, we're probably not a big fan of it but we’re taking a look at it.”

McGonegle said this regulation creates some roadblocks for how pork is processed in his own state.

“There's different segments, born, raised, processed that they're evaluating and they’ve come up with proposals for that we're looking at.

“One of the biggest concerns we have is the number of pigs that come into Iowa, are finished there and processed there aren't born in Iowa and so how do we handle those?” he said.

But those aren’t the only concerns or questions he has about V-COOL and they will continue to have discussions about how pork will be labelled if a hog is not born in the U.S., how this impacts the marketplace and retailers.

“Obviously at the end of the day we're really concerned about how this impacts pork producers in Iowa,” he added. 

McGonegle says members of his organization are still evaluating the new labelling guidelines and working to get a handle on how voluntary country of origin labelling differs from mandatory country of origin labelling.