Fresh Produce

The containers in which fresh produce from abroad enters the United States must be marked with the country of origin. This identification, however, is not required to be maintained for loose, or bulk, produce at the retail level. A GAO review of the potential costs and benefits of mandatory country-of-origin labeling found that the magnitude of compliance and enforcement costs for this requirement at the retail level would depend on several factors, including the extent to which current labeling practices would have to be changed. In addition, according to the Department of Agriculture and industry, mandatory labeling at the retail level could be viewed by other countries as a trade barrier. GAO summarized this report in testimony before Congress; see: Fresh Produce: Potential Consequences of Country-of-Origin Labeling, by Robert E. Robertson, Associate Director for Food and Agriculture Issues, before the Subcommittee on Livestock and Horticulture, House Committee on Agriculture. GAO/T-RCED-99-172, Apr. 28 (10 pages).

GAO noted that: (1) the magnitude of compliance and enforcement costs for a country-of-origin labeling requirement at the retail level would depend on several factors, including the extent to which labeling practices would have to be changed; (2) according to an association representing grocery retailers, changing store signs to ensure that produce is properly labeled would cost about 2 staff hours per store per week; (3) however, it is unclear who would bear the burden of any such additional labeling costs--retailers could absorb some or all of the costs or pass them to consumers or to their suppliers; (4) regarding enforcement, the Food and Drug Administration, in commenting on a recently proposed bill, estimated that federal monitoring would cost about $56 million annually and said that enforcement would be difficult; (5) inspectors would need documentary evidence to determine the country-of-origin of the many produce items on display, and this documentation is often not available at each retail store; (6) enforcement is carried out in only one of the three states with labeling laws; (7) Florida inspectors told GAO that they sometimes have no reliable means to verify the accuracy of labels; (8) according to Department of Agriculture officials and industry representatives, mandatory labeling at the retail level could be viewed by other countries as a trade barrier; (9) officials also noted that countries concerned with a labeling law could take actions that could adversely affect U.S. exports; (10) about half of the countries that account for most of the U.S. trade in produce require country-of-origin labeling for fresh produce at the retail level; (11) when outbreaks of foodborne illness occur, country-of-origin labeling for fresh produce would be of limited benefit to food safety agencies in tracing the source of contamination and to the public in responding to a warning of an outbreak; (12) it can take weeks or months for food safety agencies to identify an outbreak, determine the type of food involved, identify the source of the food contamination, and issue a warning; (13) retail labeling would help consumers only if they remembered the country of origin or still had the produce, or if the produce were still in the store; and (14) according to nationwide surveys sponsored by the fresh produce industry, between 74 and 83 percent of consumers favor mandatory country-of-origin labeling for fresh produce, although they rated information on freshness, nutrition, and handling and storage as more important.