Wegmans: Cool Comment

More comments flowing in on COOL. Like PMA, Wegmans asks that fresh cut items to be considered processed and not covered. However, some are concerned (United Fresh) that a "proccessed" label under COOL law could have negative implications for fresh cut under PACA law.

From Wegmans:

September 29, 2008

To: U.S. Department of Agriculture, http://www.regulations.gov

Subject: Docket No. AMS–LS–07–0081

Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling of Beef, Pork, Lamb, Chicken, Goat Meat, Perishable Agricultural Commodities, Peanuts, Pecans, Ginseng, and Macadamia Nuts

Wegmans Food Markets is pleased to offer these comments to U.S. Department of Agriculture regarding its request for comments on mandatory country of origin labeling.

Wegmans is a family owned chain of large supermarkets based in Rochester, NY and operating in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia. We began as a produce pushcart in 1916 and today have 72 stores and 35,000 employees. We have been named to the “Fortune” magazine list of Top 100 Companies To Work For In America since the list was started eleven years ago.

We appreciate how the Department has blended the customer’s need for origin information with the realities of today’s produce business. Allowing regional designations for perishable agriculture commodities lets customers continue to rely on programs like “Pride of New York” or “Jersey Fresh” to help guide their buying decisions. Not requiring “product of” along with the name of the country/state/or region takes into consideration the limited space that retailers have on labels, while still providing information to customers. The decision to allow single commodities from different sources to be commingled on display provided signage lists each of the sources eliminates the need for duplicate displays at retail, and this is very important. We urge the Department to continue this latitude in the final rule.

We also appreciate the flexibility that the Department’s interim final rule provides by allowing us to provide the required information through a variety of different vehicles, such as signs, labels, pintags, twist ties and various other means. We encourage the Department to include this flexibility in the final rule so that we can continue to find the best way to provide this information to our customers. We would appreciate clear guidance from USDA on acceptable wording for counter signs that we can display in our meat departments.

We believe that retailers should be able to use abbreviations familiar to consumers like “Mex” for Mexico or “Can” for Canada. Abbreviations are important for scale labels, which only have a limited amount of space in which to provide consumers a significant amount of information, including the name of the product, its price, weight, and, for meat and poultry products, the required safe handling instructions. We need additional guidance on acceptable abbreviations, and we recommend that the agency specify approved abbreviations. A standard ISO list exists and would be consistent with other uses from Customs and Border Protection (CBP), as the agency mentioned in its Interim Final Rule.

Price look up or PLU stickers are a proven method of conveying country of origin information to consumers. Our customers understand that if a PLU sticker on a mango says “Chile” that the mango is a product of Chile. However, a common customer complaint is that PLU stickers are difficult to remove without damaging the underlying produce. Accordingly, we encourage USDA not to require more than a majority of produce items in any given bin to carry a PLU sticker. We ask that the agency define “majority” as it applies to bulk display stickering for perishable agricultural commodities as 50% plus one so that the industry has a specific understanding for compliance.

We encourage USDA to continue to simplify the recordkeeping requirements in the final rule. We believe

that retailers should be allowed to rely on records maintained under the Bioterrorism Act to fulfill their recordkeeping obligations under this law. Moreover, USDA should continue to permit retailers to maintain their records off-site instead of at store level in order to avoid unwarranted duplication, and the potential for unintended errors at store level.

USDA’s current guidance document requires retailers to maintain documentation to verify the country of origin of a covered commodity that is not itself labeled, but that is shipped to the retail store in a carton bearing country of origin information for the product, such as a case of string beans in a case with the label “Product of the U.S” or a case of onions in a box stating “Product of Canada”. USDA suggests that retailers can fulfill this obligation by keeping the cases in their backrooms. The interim final rule further suggests that this information be maintained for one year. We can’t afford to build stores large enough to hold the empty boxes that would be created in a day; much less those gathered in a year. And empty boxes that once held food would create sanitation problems for our stores, and could well compromise the safety of foods produced on site. We encourage the Department to consider records maintained under the Bioterrorism Act as adequate in the final rule.

The law also recognizes that a producer affidavit may serve as an adequate record to verify the country of origin of a covered commodity. We urge the Department to include this provision in the final rule and permit retailers to rely on the continuous affidavits of their suppliers regarding the country of origin of the products that they provide to us. Retailers are dependent on the information that they receive from their suppliers, and we urge the Department to incorporate the “liability shield” allowing retailers to rely on the declarations of their suppliers in the final rule. USDA’s proposed rule and interim final rule for seafood both include this provision; the final rule should as well.

We applaud the agency’s decision to exclude items in which two or more covered commodities are combined. Within generic categories of products (lettuce, melons, etc.), different varieties are very different, and consumers perceive those differences. Because consumers go to the store to purchase specific varieties within generic categories (they seek a honeydew melon, romaine lettuce, or a Gala apple), we know that consumers appreciate and value these differences. Consumers know that iceberg lettuce is different than green leaf lettuce, and that watermelon is different than cantaloupe. We believe that consumers even differentiate among varieties of apples. We recommend that the agency designate that items with distinct varietal names within a generic category of products be deemed different products and excluded when two or more are combined.

Finally, we recommend that any fresh-cut produce item, even those not combined with another substantive food item or other covered commodity be included in the definition of “processed product”. Washing and cutting a raw agricultural commodity changes it from a raw agricultural commodity to a ready-to-eat food item; much like cooking changing a raw meat product to a ready-to-eat food.

In conclusion, we appreciate the considerable effort that USDA has expended in the rulemaking process and we urge you to consider the foregoing comments as you prepare the final rule.

Sincerely,

David Corsi

VP, Produce and Floral Merchandising

Wegmans Food Markets