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April 2009, eleven Colorado residents develop Campylobacter infections after consuming raw milk sold through a cow share program.  September 2009, thirty-five Wisconsin residents develop Campylobacter infections after consuming raw milk sold through a cow share program.  November 2009, three persons in Washington State develop pathogenic E. coli infections after consuming raw milk.  January 2010, five persons in Saratoga County, New York develop Campylobacter infections after consuming raw milk.

The list could go on and on.  Drinking raw milk is, to say the least, a risky proposition.  Sure, raw milk advocates argue that we should look at the numbers of illnesses caused by pasteurized milk as a comparison.  Unfortunately for raw milk supporters, the numbers just aren’t in their favor.  According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) documents (pdf), from 1973 to 2005, raw dairy products caused over 50% of milkborne illness outbreaks, despite the fact that only about one percent of the United States population drinks raw milk.

Without a doubt, the widespread use of milk pasteurization over the last 60 years has led to fewer incidences of foodborne illness.  According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), tainted milk was the source of approximately 25% of all reported foodborne and waterborne disease outbreaks in 1938.  Today, thanks to pasteurization, tainted milk accounts for less than one percent of such reported outbreaks.

Regardless of the clear safety benefits of milk pasteurization, there are still those among us that fight ardently for access to raw milk.  They claim that raw milk cures everything from diarrhea to rickets, from ear infections to asthma.  The claims made by sellers of raw milk often sound eerily reminiscent of the snake oil salesmen of yesteryear.  The feverish tone of these raw milk advocates begs one question: Who are raw milk sales really helping–average consumers or the farms that sell raw milk for up to $13.00 per gallon?

Raw milk salesmen (and women) have turned into classic cure-all peddlers as a way to boost sales.  I am certainly not disputing the fact that there might be health benefits associated with consuming the probiotics found in raw milk, even if the CDC doesn’t agree, and even though probiotics can be found in many products.  Nor am I claiming that farmers should be denied potentially lucrative revenue streams.  The main problem I have with this issue is that the advocates have stretched their sales pitches too thin, claiming that cows excrete an elixir that treats almost any ailment.  At the same time, they seem to be trying to sweep the potential dangers of consuming fecal-bacteria-tainted milk under the carpet.  Unfortunately, the end result is that the real victims of this deceptive advertising are often persons with already-weakened immune systems, such as children and the elderly.

The raw milk debate strikes a particular chord with me because it is so intertwined with my legal field of interest, products liability.  Products liability was born out of the need to hold producers of medicines liable for injuring consumers.  The rationale behind holding producers liable was simple: consumers couldn’t be expected to chemically analyze medicine before putting it into their bodies, therefore they had no choice but to rely on the producer’s good word that the medicine did what it purported to do in a safe manner.  From an ethical standpoint, this made sense.  If a supposed expert advertises a product as safe, it doesn’t seem morally sound to blame the consumer for his or her subsequent injury or death.

The birth of the products liability movement provides a valuable lesson about the raw milk debate of today.  By today’s standards, the claims made by producers of medicines in the mid-1800s often seem outrageous.  Products containing large amounts of mercury were a common treatment for syphilis.  Lead was also used to treat a variety of ailments.  Scientists even suspect that Beethoven’s death was likely due to lead poisoning, developed after a lifetime of exposure to lead-based medical treatments.

Of course, the error of comparing the treatment of diseases with toxic medicines to the treatment of diseases with raw milk lies in the fact that the dangers of such medicines were not known in the 1800s.  The dangers of consuming raw milk, on the other hand, were known by scientific pioneers such as Louis Pasteur as early as 1862.  Indeed, in the modern day there is no excuse for exposing persons with weakened immune systems to raw milk that is known to contain deadly bacteria.

Despite a clear history of outbreaks, and a history of contamination with deadly bacteria that was known by scientists over 140 years ago, raw milk advocates continue to fight for their right to consume the product and feed it to their children.  The internet age has created new avenues for proponents to reach consumers.  It has also created an unregulated communication forum in which assertions of fact are rarely questioned.  That sentiment of course applies to this article as much as it does any article posted on the World Wide Web.  But, I would urge consumers to think long and hard about the goal behind campaigns that tout endless positive benefits of a product, side by side with sales pitches about the lucrative cash-earning potential of product sales.  Like the products of yesteryear, we may one day look back in horror at the health risks consumers were willing to take in the name of a product that claimed to cure everything from heart disease to stomach cancer.

As with medicine, I will be the first to admit that some milk is more dangerous than other milk.  There are relative risks and benefits of consuming either raw milk or pasteurized milk.  Nonetheless, for the sake of my own health, I would rather avoid medications and milk that are not subjected to a sterilization process. Then again, I don’t pretend to have all the answers.  There may be some great benefits to raw milk, but it’s hard to ignore the federal government’s pleadings to stop the sale of raw milk.  The government may be wrong.  I may be wrong.  Or perhaps, the reality is that raw milk is simply not a safe product to feed to our nation’s children.  Nonetheless, I’m sure that many raw milk advocates will unwittingly continue to paraphrase Stephen Colbert as they keep trying to convince us that reality has a well-known anti-raw milk bias.

In a shift away from GMOS, aka genetically modified organisms, important research is continuing in gene editing, sometimes referred to as “the next big thing in agriculture.”

The important difference between the two is that in the case of gene editing, no foreign DNA is inserted into a plant, animal or microorganism to achieve improvements in size, productivity, disease and insect resistance and in some cases even drought resistance.

In contrast, in the case of GMOs, foreign DNA from one organism is injected into a plant or animal to achieve improvements of one kind or another. This has some people uneasy, or even downright hostile, toward GMOs. Frankenfoods is what some people call them.

One example of a GMO is genetically modified salmon. In that case, the equivalent of a genetic on-off switch from an ocean pout, was introduced into the genetic structure of a salmon. This modification gives the salmon a year-round appetite enabling it to reach market size faster. 

In other words, these quick-growing larger fish can fetch better prices in the marketplace, as long at the marketplace accepts them.

While the Food and Drug Administration says that GMO foods are carefully studied before they are sold to the public to ensure they are as safe as the foods consumers currently eat and that they don’t affect them any differently than non-GMO foods, some foreign markets, the EU, and especially France, as well as many U.S. consumers, see things differently. So differently that they’re banned in some countries and voluntarily labeled as such in the United States.

Santosh Kumar

Now enter genetic editing, which Canadian scientist Santosh Kumar hails as the future of agricultural crop research. In a recent presentation for the Brandon Chamber of Commerce, he explained that current research focuses on breeding crops that are more productive without the use of foreign DNA. This, he said, improves the quality of crops, and is more acceptable in the global market than GMO crops.

Often called CRISPR, gene editing allows researchers to disable a gene or add one for a desirable trait by modifying a gene in a specific place in a genome. Think of a pair of scissors; only in this case it’s enzymes that do the work instead. The enzymes allow researchers to precisely insert or delete genes in an animal or plant’s DNA, intending to improve its health, productivity, and nutritional benefits.

Kumar said that to ensure that Canada retains its strong position in the agriculture market in the future, researchers are breeding better crops, while staying away from genetically modifying them. A big reason for this is that Canada needs to be able to sell what it grows.

The GMO label can turn some countries away, he said.

In contrast, crop bioengineering research that incorporates gene editing, genomics and phenomics are preferred.

Important to keep in mind is that gene editing works only within a species’ own DNA. The goal is to bring about desired changes that in the past would only happen with traditional breeding practices. For centuries, farmers have relied on selective breeding, which involves breeding plants and animals with desirable traits to others without those traits to improve food production and quality. It obviously takes a lot of hit-and-miss to achieve this goal, not to mention a lot of time — generations of time sometimes. That’s why gene-editing is often called “a high-tech form of selective breeding.”

Lindsey du Toit

Washington State University researcher Lindsey du Toit, who focuses on the biology and management of diseases affecting small-seeded vegetable seed crops grown in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States, agrees with Kumar that crops have to meet the needs of the market. 

“It all depends on what the market accepts,” she said.

With this in mind, Kumar said his work at the Brandon Research and Development Centre is focused on non-GMO research methods that still improve crops. Wheat and barley are examples of food grains the centre is working on.

To bolster the future of Canada’s foodgrain industry, scientists breed varieties that are better adapted to overcome challenges, such as crop diseases that are more prevalent in prairies, where most wheat is grown. These varieties also have better resistance to weather conditions like drought.

He told the group that this process results in an increase in yields at harvest time, disease-resistant breeds, and a higher quality of the end product. Speaking of Canada’s work in the field so far, Kumar said the country’s wheat is considered “premium” in the global market. “Even the Americans say it’s really good.”

Besides which, he said that the GMO label can turn some countries away, which is why gene editing is preferred. 

Some researchers in the EU involved in GMO studies have even quit and gone on to other endeavors. Widespread protests against GMOs and even paint splashed on the cars of GMO researchers are examples of the resistance against GMOs.

“In this context of high opposition, a change of attitude towards GMOs seems rather difficult to achieve in the EU, notably in France,” says a report on GMOs.

What about meat?
In 2023, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized allowing gene-edited pigs into the human food chain.

As a starter, German-style sausages, made from five 2-year-old genetically edited pigs, which were cooked up at Washington State University, were a test case. Jon Oatley,  a professor in the college’s School of Molecular Biosciences, said he went through the FDA food-use authorization process for the pigs to show that food made from the animals using a CRISPR application is safe to eat. 

Jon Oatley

For Oatley and his fellow researchers, the overall goal is to develop desirable traits for improved food production and meat quality, which will help feed the planet’s growing population. This, in turn, is an important goal for boosting protein sources in developing nations.

But the research goes beyond pigs. Oatley said researchers  are also working cattle, goats, and sheep, all of which are important food-producing animals.

The FDA authorization is investigational and limited to the pigs in Oatley’s research.

“But in the future, we will be seeking food-use authorization for the other species as well,” he said.

Tracey Forfa

Tracey Forfa, director of the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Science, tied her agency’s role with its need “to keep our regulatory approach current with the evolution of science.”

“We recognize that innovations in animal biotechnology offer tremendous opportunities for advancing human and animal health,” she said.

“We’re just driving to the ballpark,” said John Dombrosky, CEO of Ag Tec Accelerator in an interview with Bloomberg News. “Gene editing will be free to do tremendous things across the ag continuum, and the promise is just gigantic. We’ll be able to fine-tune food for amazing health and nutrition benefits.”

Food safety?

As for food safety, WSU researcher Oatley said there is no concern about food safety from the CRISPR edits that were made.

“The DNA changes were not in any part of the genome that would make the animals more susceptible to infectious disease compared to normal non-edited pigs,” he said. “The USDA FSIS (Food Safety and Inspection Service) inspected the animals prior to processing and the carcass after processing using the standards applied to all processed livestock and found no abnormalities.”

Oatley also confirmed that as long as standard food-safety practices are used in raising, slaughtering, packaging, and cooking the meat, the pork will be free of foodborne pathogens.

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One multi-billion merger partner bailed out after two court rulings went against the long-pending Kroger-Albertsons merger.

Albertsons has gone from being a merger partner with Kroger to seeking billions over the deal, which has gone sour.

The $24 billion merger was first announced in 2022. The issue of whether the Albertsons-Kroger marriage would help or hurt completion has been fought out in the courts.

Kroger responded to the negative court decisions, saying, “Through its proposed merger with Albertsons, Kroger would invest more than $1 billion in lower grocery prices, an additional $1 billion in higher grocery worker wages, and an additional $1.3 billion to improve Albertsons stores. 

“Kroger is disappointed in the opinions issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon and the Washington State Court, which overlook the substantial evidence presented at trial showing that a merger between Kroger and Albertsons would advance the company’s decades-long commitment to lowering prices, respecting collective bargaining agreements, and is in the best interests of customers, associates, and the broader competitive environment in a rapidly evolving grocery landscape. The company is currently reviewing its options.”

Albertsons, meanwhile, sued Kroger.

It announced that Albertsons Companies Inc. (NYSE: ACI) filed a lawsuit against Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR)  in the Delaware Court of Chancery, bringing claims for willful breach of contract and breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing arising from Kroger’s failure to exercise “best efforts” and to take “any actions” to secure regulatory approval of the companies agreed merger transaction, as was required of Kroger under the terms of the merger agreement between the parties. 

Under the Court of Chancery rules, Albertsons’ complaint against Kroger is temporarily under seal.

According to the Albertsons filing, Kroger willfully breached the Merger Agreement in several key ways, including by repeatedly refusing to divest assets necessary for antitrust approval, ignoring regulators’ feedback, rejecting stronger divestiture buyers, and failing to cooperate with Albertsons.

Tom Moriarty, Albertsons’ general counsel and chief policy officer, said: “A successful merger between Albertsons and Kroger would have delivered meaningful benefits for America’s consumers, Kroger’s and Albertsons’ associates, and communities across the country. Rather than fulfill its contractual obligations to ensure the merger succeeded, Kroger acted in its financial self-interest, repeatedly providing insufficient divestiture proposals that ignored regulators’ concerns. Kroger’s self-serving conduct, taken at the expense of Albertsons and the agreed transaction, has harmed Albertsons’ shareholders, associates, and consumers. We are disappointed that the opportunity to realize the merger’s significant benefits has been lost because of Kroger’s willfully deficient approach to securing regulatory clearance.”

Moriarty continued: “We are taking this action to enforce and preserve Albertsons’ rights and to protect the interests of our shareholders, associates, and consumers. We believe strongly in the merits of our case and look forward to presenting it to the Court to hold Kroger responsible for the harm it has caused.”

Albertsons’ claims against Kroger are confirmed by the recent rulings from the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon and the King County Superior Court for the State of Washington, which granted regulators’ requests to block the merger. Those results could have been avoided but for Kroger’s breaching conduct.

Albertsons is seeking billions of dollars in damages from Kroger to make Albertsons and its shareholders whole. Albertsons’ shareholders have been denied the multi-billion-dollar premium that Kroger agreed to pay for Albertsons’ shares and have been subjected to a decrease in shareholder value on account of Albertsons’ inability to pursue other business opportunities as it sought approval for the transaction. Albertsons also seeks to recover money for the time, energy and resources it invested in good faith to try to make the merger successful.

In light of the Oregon and Washington courts’ rulings enjoining the company’s proposed merger with Kroger and Kroger’s failure to close the merger before the contractual deadline to do so, Albertsons has notified Kroger of its decision to terminate the merger agreement. This termination entitles Albertsons to an immediate $600 million termination fee and removes contractual constraints on Albertsons’ ability to pursue other strategic opportunities.

In addition to the $600 million termination fee, Albertsons is entitled to relief reflecting the multiple years and hundreds of millions of dollars it devoted to obtaining approval for the merger, along with the extended period of unnecessary limbo Albertsons endured as a result of Kroger’s actions. Albertsons further seeks to recover certain expenses and costs.

Albertsons Companies is a top food and drug retailer in the United States, operating 2,267 retail food and drug stores, 1,726 pharmacies, 405 associated fuel centers, 22 dedicated distribution centers, and 19 manufacturing facilities. 

Albertsons operates stores across 34 states and the District of Columbia under more than 20 well-known banners, including Albertsons, Safeway, Vons, Jewel-Osco, Shaw’s, Acme, Tom Thumb, Randalls, United Supermarkets, Pavilions, Star Market, Haggen, Carrs, Kings Food Markets, and Balducci’s Food Lovers Market. 

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Israel has proposed a revised system of food business licensing to ease the regulatory burden on industry and improve sanitary conditions.

The Ministry of Health said the current regulation, regarding business licensing in general and food businesses in particular, is outdated and places a heavy regulatory burden on companies. This deters the sector’s competitiveness, leading to surplus costs with no evidence of health benefits.

Reform will focus on training food handlers and holding business owners accountable for risk management and maintaining public health.

The goal is to set outcome-based requirements as much as possible. Practitioners will learn about the risks in their activities and take steps to prevent them. This approach shifts the relationship from an inspector-inspected dynamic to one where all parties—inspectors and businesses—work together to protect public health.

Risk of foodborne illness
Uriel Bosso, Minister of Health, said: “The Ministry of Health’s food business licensing reform is a direct continuation of our struggle with the cost of living and an additional historic move towards implementing a policy of regulatory improvement, obstacle removal, and assistance to Israeli entrepreneurs. The reform will increase economic competition and, hopefully, decrease prices for the end consumer.”

Regulations aimed at food businesses are designed to protect public health and manage risks associated with storing, preparing, and serving different types of food. These risks can cause gastrointestinal illness and food poisoning.

Intestinal infectious disease data related to food, such as salmonellosis, campylobacteriosis, and listeriosis, shows that about 130,000 patients are reported annually.

In September, the Ministry of Health reported an undisclosed number of E. coli infections and said the bacteria had been found in several apples. The agency added that washing fruits and vegetables with water before consumption was important.

In August, local media reported a Salmonella Braenderup outbreak affecting people nationwide. More than 40 patients reported consuming fish at home or in restaurants, while 18 sick people ate chicken meat.

Change in approach
Moshe Bar Siman Tov, Director General of the Ministry of Health, said the reform will better safeguard public health through more appropriate monitoring mechanisms and increased flexibility for food businesses.

“The present reform will align Israeli regulation with European standards. For this initiative to succeed, we must all commit to the effort. On our part, we will ease regulations and assist businesses in navigating these changes. Local authorities will help monitor, while businesses will take responsibility by adhering to regulations. Additionally, the public must be more proactive in its expectations and requirements for businesses to operate properly.”

Dr. Sharon Elroi Preiss, head of health services in the Ministry of Health, said: “Our goal is to establish updated regulations that maintain public health without posing an economic obstacle for small businesses, especially at this time. At the Ministry of Health, we see our role as assisting businesses in finding solutions that enable them to operate while ensuring public health is maintained.”

The reform is scheduled to begin in about six months and will be divided into three stages. The first stage involves canceling low-risk regulatory requirements. The second stage includes incentivizing firms to take responsibility and grouping establishments. The third step is the transition to risk-based licensing. Comments on the plans can be submitted until Nov. 17, 2024.

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Science fiction down on the farm? What about this? Take some biopsies from live meat animals, put the cells, suspended in nutrients, in large bioreactors, and wait for them to grow into a larger mass that can be processed into products such as burgers and sausages.

When asked for his opinion about this way of producing meat, a long-time beef raiser said, “What will they think of next?” 

Opponents of this new technology — and there are many — describe it as corporate ag gone amok and derisively dub it as “lab meat, “fake meat,” or “alt meat.” 

General terms are “cultivated meat” and “cultured meat.”

Not surprisingly, many meat producers warn that it’s a threat to traditional agriculture and to their livelihoods.

It seems that agriculture poses such a large threat that in May, Florida passed a bill making it unlawful for any person in the state to manufacture, hold, or offer any cultivated meat for sale or distribution. Several other states have followed suit.

Not surprisingly, a lawsuit against the ban has already been launched.

On the other side of the pond, Italy, in 2023, stepped into the fray and became the first country to ban cultivated meat, making it a law that lab-grown meat cannot be produced or marketed in Italy.

Even though BBC, which has covered this topic, says that regulators in most countries say the top issue is food safety, Italy’s ban goes beyond that. According to a statement from Italy’s ag minister, “the ban is trying to protect its food traditions and its farmers.”

Decentralizing meat production
Taking a look into the future, advocates—some of them meat producers themselves—say this new technology could decentralize meat production by having farmers actually produce the cultivated meat on their own farms.

Some even see this as a way to diversify and produce meat with fewer animals and sell their meat locally. Not to mention the environmental benefits of this approach. And the humane part of the picture—that no animals need to be slaughtered—to which animal rights supporters give a thumbs up. 

Antibiotics are typically used in meat animals and poultry to fight disease and speed up growth. However, lab-meat researchers say they don’t need to use antibiotics in their products because the sterile laboratory process makes them unnecessary. Similarly, they don’t need to use growth-promoting hormones.

Advocates also say that this method is a definite plus when it comes to food safety since it doesn’t require all the blood, guts, and manure typical of slaughterhouses. 

Cultivated meat advocates describe the advantages of this technology over conventional methods of raising livestock as “clean, safe, and humane.”

Others warn that cultivated meat is not a silver bullet. Producing enough of it at a reasonable cost is not in the cards.

History
The first cell-cultivated meat product, a hamburger, was  created in 2013  by Mark Post, a scientist at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.

Research and development continued. In 2022, the U.S. Drug and Food Administration provided premarket review and approval for two companies, GOOD Meat and UPSIDE Foods, to sell cell-cultivated chicken in U.S. markets. 

“The world is experiencing a “food revolution,” said a statement at the time from FDA Commissioner Robert Califf and Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition Director Susan Mayne.

What in the world is this all about?
It’s about the future  heading its way onto the agricultural landscape, although it will be a while before it actually happens out in the marketplace. Even so, in late 2022, cultivated meat maker UPSIDE Foods received a green light from the FDA for its chicken grown from animal cells, marking the first regulatory approval for any cultivated meat in the United States.

“We have no questions at this time that foods . . .  comprised of or containing cultured chicken cell material resulting from UPSIDE’s production process . . . are as safe as comparable foods produced by other methods,” said the agency’s no- questions letter  to UPSIDE.

So far, the only market approvals are in Singapore, Israel and the U.S. And while the industry has seen progress, most consumers have yet to see cultivated meat.

In July 2023, UPSIDE Foods and GOOD Meat sold the first cell-cultured chicken at restaurants in San Francisco and Washington D.C., respectively. 

Important to keep in mind in all of this is that cell-based meats, also called cultivated meats, are not plant-based “meatless meats” such as products like MorningStar Farms’ chicken nuggets, Beyond Burger and Awesome Burgers, which are made from a variety of vegetables.

How will it happen on the farm?
Cultivated meat is typically made in large bioreactors centralized in one facility. But in the case of farms that adopt this technology, the main production of cultivated meat will happen on the farm, said Alexander Heuer, co-founder and co-CEO of German start-up Meatosys in an interview with FoodNavigator.

Its plug-and-ply bioreactors will be housed in 40-foot shipping containers, set up  on the premises of individual farms. And while the equipment will be made elsewhere, the final growth and differentiation will be done on farm.

“This is what we call decentralized: Instead of a single large production facility, our production will be distributed across all farms that opt to install our equipment, supported by regional logistics hubs,” explained Heuer.

Heuer stressed that his company does not want to do away with animal farming, but simply create more options for farmers. 

“Animal farming is part of a much larger ecosystem and interconnected to many other aspects far beyond just ordinary meat production,” he told a reporter. “Our farmers still have animals, just less of them as our technology acts as a multiplier.”

The farmer’s voice
In the 1980s, Willem van Eelen began working on the technology that produces cultivated meat. And now his daughter, Ira, with RESPECTfarms (https://www.respectfarms.com) is continuing on with his work..

Fourth-generation Dutch farmer Teun de Jongh, of RESPCTfarms said the changes in society and the market opened his eyes to the need to consider producing cultivated meat on his farm. 

“I saw a new opportunity for my farm,” he said in video the on the website. “I’m working with experts to make my farm ready for the future. It’s an opportunity with potential economic and technological benefits.”

As Ira van Eelen explains in the video, the farm is a smart location for this, because everything you need is already there. You’ve got the animals and their cells, a place to generate energy, as well as the people who are adept at handling them, are familiar with following processes and know how to deal with hygiene. Farmers can play a role in feeding the cells, and process residual flows via recycling and waste management. 

“So why wouldn’t we do it in a place like that?” she asks.

RESPECTfarms is working toward fully optimizing its first farm by 2029, in the hope to start a movement that can help scale out its process from 2030 onwards. 

“Our first long-term vision is the transformation of 1,000 farms in 2038, with a growing network to expand and sustain,” says van Eelen.

But how much will it cost?
According to a report from the Royal Agricultural University (RAU), farms producing cultivated meat would cost an average of 30 percent more than large factories doing the same thing. While this research was done with the UK’s farms in mind, it nevertheless suggests significant challenges.

Even so, advocates are optimistic that continued research in this “young industry” will find ways to keep the costs down. 

That has already happened in the marketplace. The first lab-grown burger cost $330,000 to create in 2013. Since then, the price has fallen to just under $10 today.

According to RESPECTfarms’ website, “The technological development of cultivated meat can help provide the world and its ever-growing appetite for meat with a solution: sustainable, locally produced beef, pork, and poultry.

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The USDA has proposed a rule that would stop poultry producers from selling chicken and turkey contaminated with high levels of certain types of Salmonella.

The rule, would make it illegal to sell chicken, chicken parts or ground chicken and turkey if it is found to be contaminated with certain types of Salmonella. It is to be applied by the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. The proposed rule was more than three years in the making. An enforcement date has not yet been set. 

Once the proposed rule is published in the Federal Register the public and entities including industry organizations, individual producers and consumer groups will have 60 days to comment. The comment period could be extended. When the comment period ends the USDA will begin writing the final rule. 

The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service estimates the proposed rule would result in benefits to society of $20.5 million per year, ranging from $4.4 million to $39 million. The majority of the benefits would be derived from prevented illnesses of $12.9 million per year, ranging from $0.3 million to $28.7 million. FSIS also estimated avoided costs from a reduction in the risk of outbreak-related recalls for industry. Additional industry actions in response to this proposal may lead to additional benefits, according to the FSIS.

In it’s announcement of the 149-page proposed rule, the USDA boiled the regulation down to simple language:

“The proposal would establish final product standards to prevent raw chicken carcasses, chicken parts, ground chicken, and ground turkey products that contain any type of Salmonella at or above 10 colony forming units (CFU) per gram/ml and any detectable level of at least one of the Salmonella serotypes of public health significance from entering commerce. 

“The proposed Salmonella serotypes of public health significance identified for raw chicken carcasses, chicken parts, and comminuted chicken are Enteritidis, Typhimurium, and I,4,[5],12:I:- and for raw comminuted turkey are Hadar, Typhimurium, and Muenchen.”

The USDA says the proposal would require poultry establishments to develop a microbial monitoring program to prevent pathogen contamination throughout the slaughter system.

The proposed rule states that “if test results detect Salmonella at a level of 10 cfu/mL(g) or higher and at least one Salmonella serotype of public health significance, FSIS would consider products represented by the sampled lots to be adulterated and would issue a non-compliance record (NR). Therefore, all products in the lot represented by the sample would be prohibited from entering commerce. If any product from the lot represented by the product samples has entered and remains available in commerce, FSIS would request that the producing establishment recall the implicated products.” 

All producers would be required to have written plans on how to handle circumstances when and if violations of the regulation are found.

The proposed rule does not require poultry producers to test live chickens they receive.

“FSIS considered the available scientific research as well as input from the NACMCF and concluded that, at this time, the research does not support the use of a threshold for test results at the receiving step to reduce or eliminate Salmonella from raw poultry products. In addition, FSIS received several comments from small poultry processors and producers and trade associations representing the meat and poultry industries that expressed concerns that the measures under consideration in Component One would impose an overwhelming burden on small producers and processors,” the proposed rule states.

“. . . While FSIS has decided at this time not to establish a regulatory requirement that establishments characterize Salmonella as a hazard reasonably likely to occur at receiving or that incoming flocks be tested for Salmonella before entering an establishment, the Agency is focusing on a non-regulatory approach for reducing the Salmonella load on incoming birds. The Agency intends to provide updated guidance on pre- harvest interventions and practices for preventing or reducing Salmonella colonization of live birds. The Agency also will continue to explore and develop strategies for industry to address Salmonella contamination risk at receiving.” 

Scientific evaluation made up the basis for the proposed rule, according to the USDA’s Under Secretary for Food Safety Dr. Emilio Esteban. He said the proposal includes provisions based on feedback from “stakeholder engagement.” He said he wants public, private and consumer groups to provide feedback on the proposed rule.

“We encourage all interested stakeholders to submit comments and relevant data on the proposal as we work to finalize data-driven, science-based regulatory policies to address Salmonella in poultry,” Esteban said.

In addition to proposed rule on Salmonella in chicken and poultry, the USDA is addressing labeling concerns, including false and misleading claims on certain chicken products. Breaded stuffed chicken breasts were already addressed earlier this year with a regulation limiting the amount of Salmonella that they may contain. The USDA contends that depictions of the products on labels were confusing for consumers who thought the products were already cooked.

A separate regulation published earlier this year was drafted to end confusion about the origin of poultry.

“FSIS announced this year a final rule allowing the voluntary ‘Product of USA’ claim to be applied only to those FSIS-regulated products that are derived from animals born, raised, slaughtered and processed in the United States,” according to the USDA.

USDA’s proposed rule explains the rational behind the Salmonella regulation.

“Under this proposal, establishments would be required to incorporate statistical process control (SPC) monitoring principles into their microbial monitoring programs (MMPs). The proposed revisions would require that establishments use only validated and fit for purpose microbial sampling and analysis procedures, generate and record statistically meaningful microbial monitoring data, set benchmarks by which to evaluate microbial monitoring data, and otherwise define the statistical methods the establishment will use to evaluate the recorded data against the predefined limits.

“. . . Salmonella illnesses associated with poultry also represent a considerable economic burden, particularly when accounting for not just the direct medical costs, but also productivity losses, lost life expectancy, chronic illness, and other associated pain and suffering. A recent study estimates that the economic costs of Salmonella illnesses in the United States associated with chicken is $2.8 billion annually,” the proposal states.

The proposed rule also outlines problems with the current regulation in terms of reducing Salmonella infections associated with chicken.

“With respect to Salmonella illnesses associated with chicken and turkey, one study found that the proportion of outbreaks associated with these commodities was essentially unchanged from 1998-2017 and that both the proportion of outbreaks and number of outbreaks associated with chicken remained essentially constant. 

“During that period, the per capita annual consumption for pork, beef, and turkey all declined between 9 percent and 22 percent, while annual consumption of chicken increased by 15 percent,” states the proposal.

Costs associated with this proposal are addressed with the statement that “eligible very small (VS) and very low volume (VLV) establishments would have access to laboratory services provided by FSIS at no charge to analyze the establishments’ microbial monitoring samples for them.”

Reactions to the proposed rule

Consumer groups are generally praising the 149-page proposal as being a step forward for public health.

Consumer Reports said the proposed rule is a “momentous and significant step” toward protecting consumers. Brian Ronholm, the director for food policy at Consumer Reports, said too much poultry contaminated with Salmonella ends up on the market and sickens hundreds of thousands of people every year.

“By establishing final product standards that strictly limit Salmonella levels allowed in poultry, the USDA’s proposed rule will encourage processors to step up contamination prevention efforts and lower the risk that the chicken and turkey you bring home from the grocery store will make you sick,” Ronholm said.

Research has found that Salmonella on poultry is responsible for 29 percent of Salmonella illnesses in the United States. Salmonella contamination is widespread in chickens in part because of the often crowded and filthy conditions in which they are raised, according to Consumer Reports. Salmonella from live birds contaminates chicken and chicken parts while carcasses are being prepared for sale to consumers.

“A 2022 CR investigation, for example, found almost one-third of ground chicken samples tested contained salmonella. Of those, 91 percent were contaminated with one of the three strains that pose the biggest threat to human health: Infantis, Typhimurium, and Enteritidis,” according to Consumer Reports.

Although the USDA’s proposed rule is being embraced by consumer protection groups, the failure to include the Salmonella serotype Infantis is drawing fire. The rule would cover only Enteritidis, Typhimurium, and I,4,[5],12:I:- types of Salmonella in chicken.

A petition filed by a number of groups and individuals in January of 2020 identified 31 types of Salmonella that cause human illness and can be found in poultry. The petition asked the USDA to declare the serotypes as adulterants, thus making it illegal to sell poultry contaminated with them.

In May 2022, FSIS denied the petition without prejudice, citing a lack of sufficient data available to support the sweeping actions requested in the petition. In the response, FSIS agreed that an updated Salmonella strategy is necessary to reduce Salmonella illnesses associated with poultry and described how FSIS was working toward gathering data and information necessary to support a revised strategy 

The agency’s failure to include only three of those serotypes for chicken is seen as being deficient by some, including the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

The proposal does not cover Salmonella Infantis, which emerged as a leading human health threat in 2018, causing a large multistate outbreak. Adding this strain would ensure the rule covers 79 percent of outbreak-associated illnesses, according to USDA’s estimates.

“Salmonella Infantis is an important emerging threat to human health, and excluding this strain risks having a new standard that is outdated before the ink is even dry,” said the centers’s Director of Regulatory Affairs Sarah Sorscher. “In addition to including Infantis in its final proposal, USDA should also be sure to fulfill its commitment to revisit the standards regularly, swiftly incorporating new emerging threats in the future.”

However, overall the proposed rule is being lauded by all corners of consumer protection groups. Bill Marler, the Seattle food safety attorney who filed the petition on behalf of consumer groups and individual consumers, said the proposed rule is a major step by the USDA.

“Sure, I would like to ban all Salmonella from chicken, but I learned long ago that you never make progress by making ‘perfect the enemy of the good,’ ” said Marler. “Making the three Salmonellas that are know to cause human illnesses adulterants and limiting them in poultry is a good step for public health and in the long run a good step for the poultry industry.

“Kudos to Tom Vilsack, Jose Emilio Estaban, Sandra Eskin and all the great scientists and others at USDA/FSIS that worked on this. Not perfect in my mind, but awfully damn good.”

One consumer group, the Consumer Federation of America has a decidedly split opinion of the proposed rule. The federation contends that the proposed rule will move the needle forward on the protection of consumers from Salmonella on chicken and turkey sold at grocery stores across the nation.  

“Today’s proposed rule marks an important step forward for public health,” said Thomas Gremillion, the federation’s director of food policy. “For decades, consumers have had to pay the price for an ineffective and inefficient poultry inspection system that fails to hold companies accountable for shipping unsafe food to store shelves. Today’s rule sets safety standards where they matter to consumers: on poultry products themselves, rather than on the establishments that process the birds.”

The federation says the proposed rule will begin to put the responsibility of safe poultry on the shoulders of industry rather than on consumers. The proposed rule puts to rest the “antiquated notion” that Salmonella, no matter how virulent, can never be considered an adulterant because, in the words of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s 1974 decision in American Public Health Association v. Butz: “American housewives and cooks normally are not ignorant or stupid and their methods of preparing and cooking of food do not ordinarily result in salmonellosis.”

“Even back in 1974, the Butzcourt’s misogynist rhetoric did not square with the epidemiological and microbiological data,” the federation’s announcement said. 

The poultry industry is being cautious with its reaction to the proposed rule.

“Regarding the Salmonella Framework, while NTF (National Turkey Federation) believes that FSIS already possesses the authority and regulatory tools necessary to drive improvements in food safety without implementing a final product standard for Salmonella in turkey products, we will diligently review and provide meaningful comment on the proposal. NTF believes any standard should be science-based and should not impose unnecessary costs and product destruction for members of the U.S. turkey industry,” according to a statement from the industry group.

Comments on the proposed rule about Salmonella on chicken may be submitted online via the federal eRulemaking portal, available at www.regulations.gov; by mail sent to Docket Clerk, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service, 1400 Independence Avenue SW, Mailstop 3758, Washington, D.C. 20250-3700, or by hand or courier delivery to 1400 Independence Avenue SW, Jamie L. Whitten Building, Room 350-E, Washington, D.C. 20250-3700. All items submitted by mail or electronic mail must include the agency name and docket number FSIS-2023-0028.

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Outcomes from a workshop have shown that people don’t want diverging food safety standards between nations in the United Kingdom, according to research published by the Food Standards Agency (FSA).

Reasons given for these views include thinking it would mean additional complications for businesses and consumers, impact trade, and lead to mistakes in food production and manufacturing. However, there was some support for regulatory divergence- both from the EU and across UK nations- if it reduced prices.

Research was conducted with 78 people from England, Wales, and Northern Ireland who participated in four online workshops in January and February 2023.

Participants were surprised when told that food regulations could be devolved across the UK. This stemmed from a belief that food safety is unlikely to require national variation.  

Views toward regulatory divergence from EU legislation differed depending on attitudes toward the UK leaving the European Union. Those more optimistic about the exit focused on the potential benefits of reducing bureaucracy and lowering consumer costs. Those more pessimistic about it felt any changes could lead to increased costs, more significant confusion, and business complications.

People’s main concerns
People did not always understand the need for regulatory divergence and questioned the motivations behind different approaches. They worried trust in the FSA could be eroded if the public was not clear as to why regulations differed, and it could lead to suggestions that the UK was not prioritizing food safety in the same way as the EU. 

There was concern that regulatory divergence could impact how much the UK exports to the EU and other countries. Imports could also be affected, resulting in shortages if food produced elsewhere did not meet changed UK regulations.

After discussing four hypothetical scenarios, participants were most open to regulatory divergence on products and activities seen as low risk or having little impact on perceived safety. Product types deemed low risk included fruit and vegetables. Participants felt that divergence concerning meat or fish was riskier.

Changes to temperature were seen as less significant than other examples, including those related to inspection, animal welfare, or foodborne disease.

Participants had greater concerns if divergence impacted the contents of food rather than the way it was processed or stored. Changes to regulations involving adding ingredients to food or releasing chemicals within packaging were widely seen as more concerning. 

Meat sector focus
An earlier project looked at regulatory divergence in the meat sector. Seventy-six participants from England, Wales, and Northern Ireland participated in 14 online focus groups in July and August 2022. They believed meat needed to be more stringently regulated than vegetables because of perceived higher health risks if something went wrong.

Participants had not considered the extent to which the FSA is involved in the official control process. They were surprised at the scale of the meat industry in the UK, both in terms of the number of animals slaughtered and the hours spent on inspection each year.

Participants were largely unaware of the continuous presence of Official Veterinarians (OVs) and Meat Hygiene Inspectors (MHIs) at abattoirs. They found this reassuring, and it led to initial resistance to potential changes that regulatory divergence might bring. 

Respondents were skeptical about the motivations for regulatory divergence and were against it if changes were to save business costs. There were also concerns that changes were being made for political reasons to show the UK had left the EU rather than to support companies or consumers. People were more accepting if they felt divergence could reduce the burden on food businesses.

Participants did not understand why there would be a need or desire for rules to differ between UK nations. They said having a consistent regulatory regime would be less confusing and reduce complexity for consumers, businesses, and the FSA. Some feared regulatory divergence was an ongoing process that could result in a gradual lowering of standards. 

Respondents said it was important the FSA informed the public about proposed changes to the regulatory framework but said it was down to individuals to research the specific details. 

When introduced to examples, participants argued that lower water temperatures for washing tools were a small change compared to trained plant staff or artificial intelligence replacing the inspection role of OVs in abattoirs.

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All meat? Or no meat? Or what about something in between? That would be “hybrid meat.”  What in the world is that?

In this case, it would be made by mixing cultivated meat, often called cultured or lab meat, with plant-based meat.

Cultivated meat

Cultivated meat is meat grown in giant stainless steel bioreactors with animal cells taken from a live animal such as a cow, pig or chicken using a biopsy to do that. The cells are immersed in a carefully regulated nutrient solution that spurs them to grow until they become pieces of meat. An important part of this is that no animals need to be killed. The final product is not “fake meat,” as it has sometimes been called, but actual meat. Or “slaughter-free” meat as some advocates call it.  

Important to keep in mind: This is not meat raised in the conventional way, on a farm or out in the field and then butchered and sold in grocery stores or restaurants.

Late last year, the FDA gave cultivated meat maker California-based UPSIDE Foods the green light for its chicken grown from animal cells, marking the first regulatory approval for any cultivated meat in the United States.

“Our chicken looks, cooks, and tastes like chicken because it is real chicken,” says a company website.

And just this week, UPSIDE Foods announced a new 187,000-square-foot facility north of Chicago. It will kickstart its operations by focusing on the production of ground-cultivated chicken products, paving the way for an innovative range of offerings. It has the capacity to expand production up to 30 million pounds annually.

In addition to working toward full approval to sell the product, UPSIDE Foods is planning to build its first commercial-scale facility. This plant will have an annual capacity of tens of millions of pounds of cultivated meat. UPSIDE hopes to have the facility up and running in the next couple of years, said a company official.

Out on the marketplace, it could take several years before consumers see lab-based meats in more than a few high-end restaurants and seven to 10 years before they hit the wider market, said Sebastian Bohn, who specializes in cell-based foods at CRB, a Missouri firm that designs and builds facilities for pharmaceutical, biotech and food companies.

Industry experts predict that while it could be as far away as 100 years before the vast majority of the world’s meat will be made this way, they also say it probably won’t happen on any scale to speak of until the next 30 years. That’s in large part because of the need to build the necessary infrastructure to produce enough of the meat and also to attract enough investors. And to get the price down to where ordinary shoppers would want to buy it.

In 2013, when news about the world’s first lab-grown burger came out, it cost $330,000 to produce. But by 2017, some industry experts were talking about lab-made burger meat that can be produced for $36 per pound — or $9 for a quarter-pound burger. Another recent study said that by addressing some technical and economic barriers, the cost of production of lab-made meat of more than $10,000 per pound today could be lowered to about $2.50 per pound over the next nine years. But that hasn’t happened yet, not by any means.

With a bow to consumers, at today’s National Association of State Departments of Agriculture’s 2023 Annual Meeting, NASDA members advocated for standards that ensure clear and consistent labeling for cell-based meat products, also referred to as cultivated, or cultured, meat. 

Plant-based meats

As for plant-based meats, also called “meatless meats,” most are made from pea or soy protein, a type of fat and some sort of binder. But they may also contain natural and artificial flavors to make the product taste more like meat. They come in all forms, among them Whopper burgers, IKEA’s plant balls, sausages, Bratwursts, meatballs, chicken patties and chicken nuggets.

In an earlier interview, Jeremy Kindlund, a vegetarian, and manager of the Sedro-Woolley Farmers Market, said he was happy to be able to eat an Impossible Burger while at the T-Mobile Stadium in Seattle watching a game.

“I think it’s a great thing that people are eating more plant-based foods,” he said. “It’s good for the environment and also a lot better than having mass-produced meat.”

Ironically enough, some vegetarians who tried the meatless burgers told reporters that they were “disgusted” by them because they tasted so much like meat.

Taste aside, price is also an issue here. Plant-based meat products cost more than meat from animals raised conventionally, but only about $1 per pound or several dollars or so more. But for families on a tight budget, that can be a deal breaker.

Footprint on the land

For some people, the environment comes into the picture.

In an earlier interview with “Business Insider,” Pat Brown, founder of Impossible Foods, said that the reason why he cares so much about replacing meat is that we’re in the “advanced stages of the biggest environmental catastrophe that our planet has ever faced” and that animal-based agriculture is a big part of that.

It comes down to the footprint of livestock on the land. For example, an analysis of the Impossible Burger found that its carbon footprint is 89 percent smaller than a burger made from beef. It also uses 87 percent less water and 96 percent less land.

Even so, it’s not like the total switch from conventional meat to plant-based meat is going to happen overnight, even though it is gaining in popularity. For that to happen, plant-based meats are going to rev up in scale. Big time. And considering how many meat animals are being raised across the world — and how large the world’s population is — that’s going to take a long time, especially since so many people in developing countries want to eat meat, and that’s a huge market waiting to happen.

Are they healthy?

Brooke Whitney, a Senior Communications Associate at UPSIDE Foods, told Verywell, a website providing health and wellness information by health professionals, that the nutrition profile of each cultivated meat “will depend on the specific product and company” that produces it.

But she said that UPSIDE Foods’ chicken “has fewer calories and lower fat than an average piece of conventionally-produced chicken.”

Melissa Mitri, MS, RD, a registered dietitian,  told Verywell that “lab-grown meat would likely contain fewer antibiotics and additives, than meat that’s been conventionally produced.

Meanwhile, a study on plant-based meats showed that fiber consumption was higher and saturated fat consumption was lower when eating plant-based meat instead of animal-based meat. And another pointed to heart-health benefits provided by plant-based meats.

Even so, some studies say that many of these plant-based foods are made from highly refined and processed ingredients and often contain more sodium than animal meats — sometimes up to six times or more.

Enter the hybrids

According to Steakholder Foods Ltd., an international company headquartered in Israel and at the forefront of the cultivate-meat revolution, the first commercial cultured meat products available will likely be hybrids.

The thinking behind this is that combining plant-based meats and cultivated meats could help boost the wider adoption of both.

And with more people watching what they eat based on concerns such as climate change, animal welfare and their own health, hybrid meats would give them the chance to eat them without compromising their values — while at the same time helping reduce their carbon footprint.

Not surprisingly, much of this comes down to price. By mixing the plant and animal proteins together the cost will come way down. 

Proteins such as soy and pea commonly used in plant-based meats are produced on a mass scale for very low prices. But that’s not the case with ingredients such as animal cells, amino acids, serums, fatty acids, sugars, salts, vitamins and other elements cells needed “to grow” cultivated meat. 

In December 2022, the Dutch food company Meatable and plant-based Love Handle in Singapore announced they’d be investing $6 million to establish the world’s first hybrid kitchen and innovation center in Singapore this year. The goal is to mass produce and release a wide variety of hybrid meat products to restaurants by next year and to supermarkets by 2025.

The company’s thinking is that if you want to make a dent in animal husbandry and the environment by the next generation, the product requires mass adoption. And that comes down to affordability.

Alternative protein and the future

From a global perspective, the hybrids would also help provide the world’s growing population with more varied protein sources.

“I’m all for anything that provides us with a safe food source,” said retired farmer Dick Klein in Western Washington. “We never know if in the future some sort of fungus, virus or livestock disease will wipe out a lot of our livestock. Right now we’re dealing with avian flu, which has already caused the deaths of more than 131 million domestic poultry flocks.

“If meat production has to move into a lab for a safe source, so be it,” he said. “Farming has changed. We’re really banking on alternative sources — anything that helps improve environmental quality and food and that offers health benefits.

Pointing out that today’s way of farming is based on an agricultural revolution that began 10,000 years ago, Klein said he’s heard some farmers say it’s time we change the way we farm and feed people.

“We’ll need alternative ways to feed people,” he said. “You can bet on that.”

What about food safety?

Bypass the cow, or other livestock raised for food, and you bypass a lot of food-safety problems, say advocates of alternative proteins such as plant-based meats and lab meats.

Uma Valeti, co-founder and owner of UPSIDE Foods, said food safety is an important part of his company’s corporate philosophy.

“Because we do not need to slaughter animals, we expect a much lower risk of fecal contamination, E. coli and salmonella among others,” he said in a previous interview. “Similarly, the risk of disease — swine flu, mad cow disease, avian flu and more — will be greatly reduced in our process.” 

He pointed out that when multiple animals are used for ground meat products, as is usually the case, bacteria from one animal can contaminate large volumes of products such as hamburgers and turkey dogs.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that pathogens in conventionally produced meat are the most common sources of fatal food-related infections.

53 hazards

On the other side of the fence, when considering if lab-grown meat is safe, an in-depth analysis by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), and a World Health Organization expert panel pointed to 53 potential health hazards. 

“As commercial cell-based food production grows, there is an increasing urgency to answer one of the consumers’ most important questions: is it safe to eat?” said a press release about this.

For this reason, FAO, in collaboration with WHO, has produced a publication, “Food safety aspects of cell-based foods“(https://www.isaaa.org/blog/entry/default.asp?BlogDate=5/10/2023#:~:text=“Food%20Safety%20Aspects%20of%20Cell,for%20cell%2Dbased%20food%20production). The 134-page document, based on extensive scientific literature, aims to share the current state of knowledge with relevant stakeholders and inform consumers about the food safety aspects of cell-based foods.

The results, according to the report, show problems and negative health consequences can include contamination with heavy metals, microplastics and nanoplastics, allergens such as additives to improve the taste and texture of these products, chemical contaminants, toxic components, antibiotics and prions.

According to the report, the focus should be on the specific materials, inputs, ingredients, potential allergens and equipment that play a particular role in cell-based food production.

At a recent symposium organized by the Animal Task Force and the Belgian Association for Meat Science and Technology in Brussels, Peer Ederer from Goal Sciences spoke about lab-grown meat, highlighting that lab-grown meat is not the answer. Despite the billions of dollars invested in cellular agriculture, as Paul Wood and others show, cultured meat will not be a true substitute for natural meat.

Then, too, a 2019 Oxford study shows that production in very energy-intensive bioreactors could have worse long-term environmental consequences than livestock farming when looking at CO2 emissions. 

Bottomline, says the study: Extreme caution is needed as there is still too little information and insufficient data on the actual safety of lab-grown meat.

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— OPINION —

Today the public comment period will close on a USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) rulemaking that, if all goes as planned, should increase the price of organic eggs. With food prices up 8.2 percent since September of last year, why would AMS do such a thing? And why would a group that represents consumers like mine, the Consumer Federation of America, urge it to act as quickly as possible even though acting quickly will, in all likelihood, cause prices to increase even more? The reasons have to do with what consumers expect from USDA certified organic products, and food safety. 

This rulemaking has attracted a lot of attention. The AMS had received more than 38,000 comments as of this writing. The proposed rule updates several regulations related to livestock production under USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP), but the most controversial provision concerns laying hens. Eggs.

Full disclosure: I buy organic eggs. I am also very, very cheap. I am so cheap that I struggle with visceral reactions to price tags at the grocery store: $3.49 a pound for cabbage? Outrageous! $3 off a six pack of sardines? Truly providence shines upon us! 

This has made for some tense moments with my wife over the years. 

Anyway, you may be thinking now, if he’s so cheap, why does he waste his money on organic eggs? The answer is complicated. Despite my acute price consciousness, I accept that I should pay more for food that reduces some of the “externalities” that modern industrial agriculture foists upon the environment, farmers, workers, animals, rural communities, you name it. Organic production has its problems, but overall, it helps. The biggest factor driving my purchase of organic eggs, however, is my family’s exposure to pesticides.

In this respect, I am not alone. In his book, “Resetting the Table,” Harvard professor Robert Paarlberg traces back the creation of the NOP to pesticide scares amplified by popular TV programs like 60 Minutes. In surveys today, consumers continue to cite health concerns as the main motivation driving their purchase of organic products. And as one group of commentators puts it, “the presence of pesticide residues in conventional food is the main difference between organic and conventional food.” Critics like Paarlberg point out that the pesticide residues on conventional crops are miniscule, and pose no health risk. Even proponents of organic food shy away from characterizing organic food as safer, partly because the NOP allows some pesticide use. 

Even so, pesticides are scary. Measuring the risk associated with chronic exposure is rife with uncertainty. And because pesticide residues on food crops bioaccumulate in animal tissue, including chicken eggs, many consumers have heightened concerns about pesticide exposure from animal products. 

What does this have to do with the AMS rulemaking? Good question. The AMS rule is nominally about animal welfare. In 2002, a large egg producer called “The Country Hen” sought to certify its Massachusetts facility as organic. As far as we know, chickens at The Country Hen were fed an exclusively organic diet and otherwise enjoyed all of the other benefits of living in an organic production facility. But they did not have outdoor access. Rather, they had access to a porch, like the one pictured here. The NOP rules require that organic producers provide “year-round access for all animals to the outdoors, shade, shelter, exercise areas, fresh air, clean water for drinking, and direct sunlight, suitable to the species, its stage of life, the climate, and the environment.” 7 C.F.R. 205.239. The auditor at The Country Hen did not agree that the porch met those criteria. But the owner of The Country Hen appealed to higher authorities at USDA, and he won!

Twenty years later, according to USDA’s proposed rule, 35 percent of hens have outdoor access via a porch system or covered area. According to a more recent report, over half of certified organic eggs come from porch facilities where the hens never go outside. 

Without a doubt, these operations have lowered the cost of “organic” eggs. Miserly, pesticide paranoid consumers like me should thank The Country Hen and its imitators, right? Wrong! Just because I am cheap does not mean that I do not value institutional integrity. The NOP regulations are clear. The 15-member National Organic Standards Board has been clear, recommending way back in 2002 that “outdoor access” should mean access to open air and sunshine and exclude porches. And the popular conception of what organic eggs entail is clear. It’s not just feeding the chickens organic feed. According to a Consumer Reports survey, 83 percent of consumers who buy organic products say it is “extremely” or “very” important that eggs labeled “organic” come from hens that were able to go outdoors and move freely outdoors. 

This is a classic case of market failure, where a few sneaky companies are taking advantage of consumers’ incomplete information. AMS needs to fix the situation, and thankfully, the proposed rule will fix it. Except that it will provide an extremely slow fix. In its cost-benefit analysis, AMS has evaluated two options — implementing the rule over five years, and implementing the rule over 15 years. At the risk of pointing out the obvious, the fact that AMS would even entertain the idea that large, sophisticated companies should have 15 years to continue duping consumers while they figure out a contingency plan smacks of corporate capture. 

Consumer advocates and other proponents of the rule, which was first introduced during the Obama administration and then withdrawn, have endorsed a three-year implementation timeline. But what about food inflation you ask? It’s true. Closing this loophole will make the price of organic eggs go up. However, a new label can help with that. 

Currently, the burden is on consumers to investigate whether eggs labeled “organic” comply with the NOP regulations. The market has responded with claims like “pasture raised” and “regenerative organic certified,” but for many consumers, spending more on these lesser known certifications is a bridge too far. A “100 percent organic diet” or “produced with organic feed” labeling claim would segment the market without undermining consumer confidence in the organic label. For consumers with concerns about pesticide residues in conventional eggs, who may care less about animal welfare and find themselves struggling to afford USDA certified organic eggs, a “100 percent organic diet” claim could present real value, and command a premium. 

For their part, companies could take advantage of USDA’s Process Verified Program (PVP) to add an air of legitimacy to a “100 percent organic diet” claim. The PVP provides independent verification of production practices and allows companies to use the USDA PVP shield on their products. Already, many egg companies participate in the PVP to make the claim that their hens eat a “100 percent vegetarian diet.” Why not a “100 percent organic diet”? 

One objection may be that this claim could undermine organic, but that seems farfetched. Organic is an economic juggernaut at this point, with annual sales projected to exceed $125 billion by 2026,  and nearly a quarter of consumers reporting that they always or often buy organic food. Demand for organic products will hold up, as long as USDA resists efforts to weaken the standards. 

Another objection is that a “100 percent organic diet” claim on eggs will not make money for companies like The Country Hen. But we will only find out if that is true once USDA restores integrity to the NOP. Let’s hope that we do not have to wait 15 years for that to happen. 

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She’s 18 now and hasn’t visited her aunt for several years. But like her aunt, she has a strong interest in cooking. Going into the kitchen, she’s pleased to see that her aunt has kept up with the times. Years ago, she was one of the first in the family to get a microwave and she recently got an air fryer.

“But, what’s that?” the young girls asks as she points to something she has never seen before.

“Oh, that,” says her aunt smiling, “is a 3D printer.”

“Here in the kitchen?”, the young girl asks. “What’s it doing here?

“I can make all kinds of food — including steaks with it,” her aunt says, obviously enjoying her niece’s bewilderment.

No, this isn’t a true-to-life scenario — not yet anyway. But it does lend a hint of what lies ahead in the almost hard-to-believe changes coming to the world of food — in this case 3D food printers.

And while some advocates say that 3D printed food is a highly anticipated innovation, others are not so sure. Just listen to what some of the shoppers, young and old, at a farmers market in Washington state had to say about it.

“Weird. How do they even do that?”

“Bizarre.”

“Too futuristic for me.”

“We’re old-fashioned,” said a Washington State University Master Gardener, who was at the market to provide answers to gardeners’ questions. “We think of food as coming from growing things.”

“Is it nutritious?” asked one of her fellow Master Gardeners. “That’s the whole purpose of food.”

“Scary. No thank you.”

“No way I’d get one for our household. We were slow to even get a microwave.”

“Maybe for decorating cakes, but definitely not for real food.”

On the other side of the coin, market manager Jeremy Kindlund said he thought it sounded exciting. “I can see a lot of potential in it,” he said.

He’s not alone in that outlook. In fact, a recent survey done by Hub.com, 3D printing experts, revealed that 3D printed food garnered an impressive number of Google searches per month when looking at a range of 3D printed advancements.  

Coming in second in the poll with 9,800 Google searches per month, 3D printed food followed 3D printed houses, which garnered 76,000 searches. Included in the 3D printed items in the survey were cars, shoes, human organs, drones, rockets, furniture, robots, dentures and even printed dresses.

In the category of 3D printed food, meat received 4,500 searches a month, thanks to what Hubs.com refers to as a “breakthrough” advancement last year.

3D printed cut of meat, not from the Israeli company, but from Dreamstime photo service.

That’s when an Israeli bioprinting company announced that it had actually printed a 104-gram (3.67 ounces) cultivated steak, perhaps the largest cultured steak produced until that time.

Simply put, cultured meat is not the same as plant-based meat. Instead it is produced from beef cells by taking a biopsy from a living cow and growing it in a nutritious medium until there’s enough critical mass to make the cells into bio-ink. The bio-ink is then printed using the company’s bio-printer. From there the printed steak is left in an incubator to allow the stem cells to differentiate into the fat and muscle cells that form the tissues found in steak. And, yes, it’s real meat.

This doesn’t involve slaughtering a cow to get beef — a decided plus for people who don’t like the thought of killing animals.

It’s also a plus for concerns about climate change because it means herds of cattle don’t have to be raised, and then slaughtered, to get beef, which adds up to impressive savings in water and other environmental benefits.

Once again, climate change comes into the picture. And beyond that scientists in favor of 3D printing point to the vast amount of resources needed to raise livestock, which is why they see this technology as a solution to meeting the pressing needs of the world’s growing population.

Regardless of their origin, plant or animal, it increasingly seems like the meat of the future will be coming not from animals, but from 3D printers, says an article in IDTechEx.

Then there’s the more down-to-earth prediction: Before long, every consumer’s kitchen will have a 3D food printer on one of its counter tops — just another kitchen tool to make preparing meals (or snacks) easier and faster.

These edible chocolate dessert cups were made with a 3D food printer and filled with regular whipped cream.

How do food printers work?
Most people know what a printer is. It prints out copies of pages you’ve put information on. That technology has been around for a long time. But a printer to make food? And what’s this about climate change? And protecting the environment?

Actually, there’s nothing all that complicated about how a 3D food printer works, at least the concept of how one works. Do you remember the pizza vending machines that popped up in 2015? In that case, dough is prepared and extruded from one of the printer’s cartridges onto a plate. Next, the dough is topped with tomato sauce and cheese and then sent to the oven — all of this in the same machine. Think of this as a primitive 3D food printing process.

Since then, advances have been made that involve using laser technology to heat up the food — again all in the same machine. Just imagine, pushing a button on the printer for ravioli and having cooked ravioli ready to eat when you open the printer’s door.

All of this, or at least some of it, is still in the future, but the future has a way of coming faster than we imagine.

Getting down to basics, most 3D food printing is done by feeding food materials such as doughs, cheeses, frostings and even raw meats into syringe-like containers that are then extruded from them as the nozzle is moved around “trace shapes” on a “plate” and forms layers one at a time. That’s how you get layers, such as for pizza.

Will you find this technology in a fast-food restaurant? Hardly. Instead, these printers are found in gourmet restaurants and fancy bakeries. Or you can go to special events featuring 3D food printers.

And there’s even a traveling restaurant that features not only 3D printed food but also tables, chairs, silverware and more made from 3D printing.

3D printed pear

But what about nutrition?
In Lynette Kucsma’s TedxHigh Point talk she lets her audience know right away that she has always considered herself a healthy eater. Which is why at first she was so skeptical about foods made using 3D printing.

But as she did some research on this, she discovered that she could eat healthy when using a 3D printer. In fact, she is now the co-founder and chief marketing officer at Natural Machines, the makers of Foodini.

When describing the status of this new technology, she told her audience: “This is science fact, not science fiction.”

She goes so far as to predict that 3D printers will follow the path of microwaves. When they were first introduced in the 1970s, “people didn’t get it,” she said. Some people even thought they could cause cancer. They’d ask “why do I need one when I already have a perfectly good oven in my kitchen?”

But things have changed, she said. Microwaves are now in 90 percent of our kitchens.

She predicted that 3D printers will follow the same route, but at a much faster rate simply because these days, technological advances move so fast. Before long, she said, they’ll be the size of a microwave and be a common kitchen appliance.

Turning to nutrition, she told her audience “Let’s print more of our food using fresh, healthy, real, wholesome ingredients. Let’s get away from packaged processed foods.”

She pointed out that by getting away from these foods, you’ll be eating more nutritious foods instead.

“And that’s healthier,” she said.

What about cost?
Filemon Schoffer, cofounder and CCO of Hubs.com, a 3D printing expert, said that the prices of 3D food printers vary depending on their features and audience.

A precise printer that can reach high nozzle temperatures is likely to be much more expensive, he said, and more appealing to businesses.

However, for those looking to get started at home you can get a basic model for around $100 to $500. Advanced home users are likely to spend around $300 to $1,000, while commercial users who want a more sophisticated model, can expect to pay over $5,000.

He said there are many models available to purchase for home use, however it’s important to do your research before spending money on a 3D printer, as there are so many different options.

What about food safety?
No problems with food safety, say the printers’ advocates, but that’s only if the food has been prepared in a machine that’s sterile and if the preparer follows sanitary procedures. No different from what’s necessary in any kitchen.

However, in The Essential Guide to Food Safe 3D Printing: Regulations, Technologies, Materials, and More, food safety with 3D printing is not a simple matter that will boil down to a clear yes or no answer. Producing 3D printed parts for food contact items requires careful consideration of the risks depending on their intended use.

A 3D printed part can turn into a petri dish squirming with bacteria within weeks. Even though some materials will survive the dishwasher, so will dangerous bacteria such as E. coli and Salmonella that live in the little nooks and crannies. Some toxic molds find favorable growth conditions on several types of plastic and are hard to remove. Neither cleaning with bleach nor microwaving is an option for eliminating germs.

No matter what, food that is consumed by people must meet strict safety standards.

Future
As 3D printing technology continues to soar, new research predicts the overall 3D printing market will continue to grow by 24 percent to reach $44.5 billion by 2026, according to research done by Hubs.com.

As it is now, there are dozens of food printers available on the market, thanks in part to public interest and the rapid growth in the technology involved.

Filemon Schoffer, cofounder and CCO of Hubs.com, said that overall, more signs of growth in 3D printing will be seen in 2022 and beyond, thanks to enhanced automation, scalable quality controls, reduced processing costs, and further industry consolidation.

He said, key factors such as this “will help 3D printing become the robust industrial manufacturing process that befits its massive potential.”

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