Rule Requires Grocery Stores To Spell Out Seafood's Origin

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) (File Photo)

Starting April 4, large supermarket chains must label the country of origin for all the unprocessed seafood they sell.

The labeling rule, part of the 2002 farm bill, will also eventually apply to red meat, pork, fruits, vegetables and peanuts.

Domestic farmers and cattle ranchers, hurt by cheap imports, initiated the idea as a way to spur purchases of U.S. products. But many retail chains and their suppliers opposed it, saying it would create a costly record-keeping nightmare.

After intense lobbying, opponents delayed labeling until Sept. 30, 2006, for all commodities except seafood.

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), chairman of the Appropriations Committee and a strong supporter of Alaska's fishing industry, helped win funds to implement the seafood portion of the measure. He noted that some retailers already identify seafood origin. Those retailers include Whole Foods Market, with 166 stores, and Wegmans, with 67 stores.

The labeling rule requires supermarkets to identify where the fish came from and whether it was caught wild or raised in captivity. Retailers and suppliers must keep that information for a year.

The rule does not cover cooked, steamed or smoked fish. Nor does it apply to fish that is part of another product, such as a TV dinner.

The Agriculture Department said the rule's benefits for consumers will be small, and it may result in higher fish prices. The agency estimates that firms will pay $89 million to comply with the new rule for seafood in the first year.

Stanley Pearlman, president of NAFCO Wholesale Fish, a distributor in Jessup that sells to Giant Food LLC, Safeway Inc., and Shoppers Food Warehouse Corp., said his company spent $10,000 upgrading its computers and printers so it could handle country of origin requirements. For fractions of pennies per pound of fish, NAFCO also changed the kinds of labels it uses.

"There's always a lot of bellyaching when new systems are put in place until people get used to them," Pearlman said. "But I imagine the retailers will be affected most, definitely more than us."

Chuck C. Anderson, vice president of seafood procurement for Giant Food, said the record-keeping requirements could cost his chain $900,000 for software in the first year alone, not including labor. Anderson said Giant, with its 199 stores, is not opposed to labeling but finds the paperwork onerous.

"If they want us to keep the invoice and billing documents, and match the paperwork at all our stores with paperwork at the corporate level, and keep all that for a year, that creates a lot of opportunity for mistakes," Anderson said.

Chris Waldrop of the Consumer Federation of America, agrees that the record-keeping part of the rule is cumbersome. He says the government could have written far simpler rules, especially since polls show that 80 percent to 85 percent of consumers favor labeling laws.

-- Dina ElBoghdady