By Cindy Skrzycki
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Pumped up saltwater chickens are on the regulatory menu in Washington as advocates for "natural" food demand labels that reflect what the product actually contains.
Actors wearing chicken suits were on the streets of the capital a few weeks ago, arguing that Tyson Foods and Pilgrim's Pride, the two biggest processors in the $58 billion-a-year U.S. chicken market, shouldn't be able to call their birds 100 percent natural. That's because up to 15 percent of their weight is an injected solution of ingredients such as salt, broth and seaweed extract.
The publicity stunt, by a coalition of smaller processors, is another example of recent pressures on the government and the Agriculture Department to pay more attention to truth in labeling, additives and food safety.
"This is about the USDA not managing the use of the 'natural' label properly," said Lampkin Butts, president of Sanderson Farms in Laurel, Miss., one of the challengers. "Seaweed extract is in the ocean, not in chickens." His company is the nation's third-biggest publicly traded U.S. poultry processor.
Nonsense, counters Ray Atkinson, a spokesman for Pilgrim's Pride of Pittsburg, Tex., the world's biggest poultry processor. "We have 100 percent natural chickens as defined by USDA," he said. "That's what we comply with." The government test for "natural" is that the product not contain anything artificial or synthetic and that it be only minimally processed.
The Agriculture Department approved labels from Tyson and Pilgrim's Pride, reasoning that salt, seaweed and chicken broth were natural ingredients.
Amanda Eamich, a spokeswoman for the Food Safety and Inspection Service at the Agriculture Department, said the products are considered minimally processed because a cook can make a similar marinade at home with a fork and a plastic bag.
The word-splitting is important because about 30 percent of chicken now is enhanced with some kind of solution. Proponents say consumers prefer the moister meat that is easier to cook.
Tyson and Pilgrim's Pride processed half the 9 billion chickens raised in the United States last year, according to the National Chicken Council, a trade group in Washington. Chicken consumption in the country has climbed to 87 pounds per person, from 57 pounds 20 years ago.
"We have no issue with chicken that is enhanced," said Michael Helgeson, chief executive of Gold'n Plump Poultry, of St. Cloud, Minn. "But it shouldn't be labeled all-natural if you inject it with a solution." His company's enhanced chicken is labeled "extra tender."
Foster Farms of Livingston, Calif., along with Sanderson and Gold'n Plump, started the Truthful Labeling Coalition. The three companies, which say they add nothing to birds they advertise as natural, petitioned the Agriculture Department in July. They argued that consumers are deceived into paying for water instead of meat and are subjected to high levels of sodium.
The three companies also hired a lobbyist, a lawyer who is a former Agriculture Department official, and a public relations firm. They are gaining support from their local members of Congress.
"I would call it fraudulent," said Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Agriculture Committee's horticulture and organic agriculture panel. Foster Farms is one of his constituents.
Forty House members sent a letter to the Agriculture Department Oct. 11, telling regulators to tighten their labeling policies. Cardoza said he is considering holding hearings.
An untreated chicken contains about 40 to 80 milligrams of sodium per four-ounce serving, the coalition said. Pilgrim's Pride uses chicken broth, salt and carrageenan, or seaweed extract, for enhancement. Its packages of boneless breasts, which bear a sign of the American Heart Association's approval, contain 330 milligrams of sodium per serving. Tyson's contain 180 milligrams.
Federal dietary guidelines say 2,300 milligrams a day should be the sodium limit for most people. Blacks, older adults and those with high blood pressure limit their intake to 1,500 milligrams a day. The Food and Drug Administration announced it would hold a hearing Nov. 29 on a public interest group's petition that the agency consider limiting salt in processed foods.
On the allegation of charging for water, Pilgrim's Pride's Atkinson said the company's enhanced chicken costs less per pound. He wouldn't say how much less.
David Hogberg, Tyson's senior vice president for fresh-meal solutions, said injecting or enhancing chickens costs the company more than it does some competitors because of the special process Tyson developed to "deliver what consumers want with less sodium."
The Agriculture Department started dealing with the additives issue after Hormel Foods of Austin, Minn., complained last year that its competitors were labeling deli meats as natural, even though they contained a chemical preservative.
The department held a hearing in December and was reviewing comments "to determine where we go from here," Eamich said. In the meantime, Hormel sued the department over the labeling issue.
Cindy Skrzycki is a regulatory columnist for Bloomberg News. She can be reached at cskrzycki@bloomberg.net.
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