Labels will tell where your food came from

Starting today, consumers will be learning a lot more about the frozen ground beef, pork tenderloin, fresh tomatoes and raspberries that they put in their grocery carts.

That’s when the Country of Origin Labeling Law goes into effect, requiring that labels for meat, poultry and produce clearly state what country they’ve come from.

Specifically, the law covers ground and whole cuts of beef, lamb, pork, chicken and goat; farm-raised and wild fish and shellfish; fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables; and peanuts, pecans, ginseng and macadamia nuts.

Country of origin labels — as well as labels indicating whether the fish was “farmed” or “wild” — have been required for fish and shellfish since 2005.

The labels aren’t for processed food. And meat and seafood sold in butcher shops and fish markets are exempt from the law.

Producers, wholesalers and retailers all must maintain and display the origin of commodities covered by the law, which carries a six-month grace period to add the labels.

While the new law, part of the 2008 federal farm bill, is technically a marketing provision designed to give U.S. products a leg up in the marketplace, advocates say it will improve overall food safety, especially after a spate of widespread food contaminations over the last two years.

Opponents of the law complain that it unfairly implies that imported foods are less safe than domestic foods and also places an unnecessary financial burden on wholesalers and retailers. They also emphasize that the extra cost of implementing the labeling law would be passed on to consumers already reeling from higher food prices.

Foes have been able to postpone the law’s implementation several times since its initial approval in the 2002 farm bill. But public support for more labeling shifted after a salmonella outbreak in 30 states was linked to tainted tomatoes earlier this year and imported pet food from China containing the industrial chemical melamine was blamed for the deaths of dogs and cats in the United States in March 2007.

There is little consensus, however, about how helpful the labels actually will be in tracing tainted food. There have been outbreaks linked to food grown in the United States, as well as to imported food.