Food labels don't always stick to the rules

"Doc" Hatfield can control plenty of things about his eco-friendly Oregon Country Beef label, from the ranchers who contribute cattle to the cooperative to the "Graze Well" principles meant to ensure the health of the land where they roam.

But he can't guarantee that a retailer, looking to increase profits, won't stick his prized label in a case that holds factory-farmed meat. He turns down four out of every five requests for his premium beef, stocking only those retailers he thinks share his values.


		Phil H. Webber / P-I
	Bob Sanders, Madison Market's meat department manager, stocks organic meats. The store has been certified as organic.

So Hatfield was "astounded" by the news last month that Puget Consumers Co-op, one of his long-standing retailers, had apparently misled customers by selling some ordinary fish under a national "Ecofish" program that was meant to be committed to selling only environmentally sound seafood.

The scandal has highlighted one of the messy truths of today's dolphin-safe, free-ranging, rain-forest-crunching, hormone-free grocery shopping: Some of the labels meant to appeal to the nation's growing ranks of environmentally conscious consumers are sound. But others are virtually meaningless. Still more are only as good as the ethics of the company that makes the products or individual workers stocking the grocery shelves.

The non-profit Consumers Union group, spurred by the confusion, has developed a Web site (www.eco-labels.org) trying to analyze environmentally conscious labels and tell consumers how much to trust each one.

"It takes many scientists here many hours to figure a lot of these labels out and what's going on behind them," said eco-labels project Director Urvashi Rangan. "It's not possible for consumers to tell just looking at a label claim or a logo what the thing means."

Adele Douglass, executive director of the Certified Humane Farm Animal Care program, says it has designed its label to minimize the possibility of fraud.

"You always get someone who is going to make his department look better, make more money, by charging a premium for something that isn't necessarily it," Douglass said. "The biggest issue is the butcher counter and seafood counter, where there's loose non-packaged (goods)."

It's a danger her agency was aware of when developing the Certified Humane label, which seeks to guarantee that animals are being raised and slaughtered in an ethically acceptable way. Producers are required to incorporate the "certified humane" guarantee within their product's own label, rather than let stores use generic stickers that could, for instance, be placed on factory-farmed chicken breasts rather than a pricier shipment from the certified farm.

"Why add extra temptation?" Douglas said.

In the PCC case, some 4 percent to 5 percent of the store's fish over the past year was apparently not certified as "Ecofish." Management and employees variously blamed the slip-up on a need to keep the seafood case more fully stocked, staff miscommunications, an errant supplier or a desire to improve profits.

Regardless of the reasons, watchdogs say an independent audit of the Ecofish retail program would have prevented such errors. It's a safeguard they say is imperative to guarantee the worth of any eco-label.

"The key thing is, you've got to have third-party certification which is truly independent, and you've got to have an aware and concerned consumer base and producer base," said Ronnie Cummins, national director of the Organic Consumer Association, which recently filed a complaint in California over what it believes are misleading labels on organic cosmetics.

"If you have those three things I think that eco-labels or social labels can work, but there are some huge loopholes."

PCC spokeswoman Trudy Bialic said the store is now trying to work with the Marine Stewardship Council to develop just that sort of system, preventing both PCC and other markets from making such mistakes in the future.

"We don't have that anywhere in the seafood industry," she said. "We tried (with Ecofish) to set a protocol that doesn't exist."

With different government agencies monitoring different claims -- or, in some cases, with no monitors -- experts say it's impossible to tell how much labeling fraud occurs in the food industry. There are only anecdotal reports of suspected cases, such as the Manhattan organic-food chain investigated for repackaging ordinary meat under an organic label last year, the records from assorted agencies like the U.S. Food Safety and Inspection Service, which investigates complaints such as a recent California report that a company was giving antibiotics to animals whose meat was labeled "antibiotic-free."

Then there are the labels that are legal but potentially deceptive.

The popular "free range" claim for chickens, for instance, is "just a classic example of a completely inconsistent label," eco-labels project director Rangan said. Federal regulations controlling the term are so loose that a chicken that spends its entire day confined indoors -- with a door at the end of a crowded coop opened for five minutes per day -- could still be accurately marketed as free range.

"What we tell people is, if you shop in a farmer's market, for example, you know that a claim (like free range) is sort of loosey-goosey out there, but if you know the farmers and ask them specific questions ... you can start to get to some of those answers yourself."

For many ecologically minded consumers, the new labeling gold standard is the highly regulated "USDA certified organic" program that began last year, with national standards set and monitored by the government.

"When you've got third-party certification backed up by, in this case, state and federal government authority, and you've got a tremendous concern on the part of everyone involved, I think we're in pretty good shape there -- although constant vigilance is required," Cummins said.

Violating the certified organic standards carries a rare penalty to help discourage fraud -- a fine of up to $10,000 -- although of the 144 complaints received in the program's first year, none have resulted in a fine, according to federal program administrators.


		Phil H. Webber / P-I
	Bob Sanders of Madison Market sorts organic turkeys in the store's warehouse. Foods labeled as organic must meet the highly regulated standards of the "USDA certified organic" program.

Nationwide, the certified organic program is "certainly more rigorous than it was previously," said Miles McEvoy, manager of the Organic Food Program for the Washington State Department of Agriculture. "We do have a few concerns in Washington state. We used to have a more extensive requirement for certification than currently exists under the federal rule."

For example, under the national program, some small-scale handlers and producers -- such as a store that grinds peanuts into its own peanut butter on-site -- are allowed to label their products as organic without going through the potentially pricey certification process.

As an additional safeguard, some stores are choosing to have the entire stores certified as USDA organic, which includes required procedures for handling the food, scheduled yearly inspections, and unannounced surveillance.

The Fair Trade coffee label, which seeks to guarantee that farmers are being paid a fair price, among other requirements, has also won independent kudos for its strict standards.

Haven Bourque, spokeswoman for Transfair USA, the independent certifier of Fair Trade coffee in the United States, said what sets the label apart is a "double audit trail" that includes inspecting the workers in the fields in the country that grows the coffee, registering how many pounds are being sold to which developer, and checking the books of U.S. licensees to make sure the amount of beans they sell matches the amount that was sold to them.

Coffee drinkers are encouraged to report any potential abuse of the label, such as suspecting that a coffee shop that claims it's selling Fair Trade coffee might be substituting lesser beans, Bourque said.

"It's a very strict system, and we do decertify co-ops, and we have terminated licenses, because we don't want a scandal."

CERTIFIED ORGANIC OUTLETS

The following Washington grocery store departments have been certified as organic by the state Department of Agriculture. The certification is meant to "ensure organic integrity and increase customer confidence in the products being sold," according to the state agency. The process includes, among other things, having an approved "organic handling system plan" for issues such as recordkeeping, training, storage, and stocking; submitting all organic food product labels for approval; and submitting to both a scheduled annual inspection and unannounced inspections or surveillance.

Community Food Co-op in Bellingham (produce department)

Madison Market in Seattle (bulk, meat and produce departments)

PCC Natural Markets (bulk grocery, bulk herbs, deli/espresso, deli packaging, meat and produce departments in all stores)

Port Townsend Food Co-op (produce department)

Skagit Valley Food Co-op in Mount Vernon (produce department)

MORE INFO

On the Web: To find out more on labels, such as what "cruelty free" actually means, and to look up specific label categories from "organic" to "animal welfare," check out: www.eco-labels.org

P-I reporter Rebekah Denn can be reached at 206-448-8190 or rebekahdenn@seattlepi.com

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