Missouri redefining what can be sold as 'meat'
With the governor's signature, a new bill will force some manufacturers to change their labels
With the governor's signature, a new bill will force some manufacturers to change their labels
With the governor's signature, a new bill will force some manufacturers to change their labels
Missouri is changing what can be advertised and sold as meat.
Last week, lawmakers passed a bill that targets both plant-based and lab-grown products.
It's the first in the nation to do so, but a federal change could be coming, too.
Bruce Mershon's family has been farming for more than century. He and his family have around 1,500 cattle now.
He’s also a board member for the Missouri Cattlemen’s Association which is behind a new bill that just needs to governor's signature to create new restrictions on what can be called meat in the state.
"Why do we make them try to figure it out,” Mershon said of grocery store labels. “Why do we place a guessing game with them when they're at the grocery store? Why not label it for what it is?”
The bill bans, “misrepresenting a product as meat that is not derived from harvested production livestock or poultry”.
Mershon says that means ‘veggie burger’ labels are fine but using words like chicken or beef will have to stop.
"No one is buying plant-based burger patties by mistake,” Jessica Almy, a policy director for the Good Food Institute said. “To suggest otherwise is both laughable and an insult to the people of Missouri."
She says plant-based meat is only about 1 percent of the market. Lab products aren't even available, Almy said, but changing the labels would be a burden to manufacturers.
"Putting more barriers and more regulation in place is really about censoring the competition,” she said.
Lab grown products are still too expensive to be in stores, but poultry could make its way to a few restaurants by the end of this year. The more likely timeframe for lab-grown products to make it to stores is probably five years.
The bill that could end up forcing a court to decide what counts as meat, and free speech.
"They can name it anything they want,” Mershon said. “Just don't name it a Kansas City strip or a pork chop."
St. Louis-based Hungry Planet and Columbia-based Beyond Meat are two Missouri companies focused on plant-based foods.
While Missouri is the first in the nation to create these regulations, it’s a topic at the national level. The USDA received thousands of comments after it took up a petition from the US Cattlemen’s Association to create a policy for what can be deemed meat.