Food Industry Pushes More Regulation. But What’s the Catch?
September 18th, 2007 laurie
An interesting item in the Wall Street Journal. It seems that the food industry is pushing for more – not less – government safety regulation. The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), the largest trade group in the industry, is going to unveil a proposal to beef up federal oversight of imported food and ingredients. According to the Wall Street Journal, the GMA proposal would require the food industry to adopt food-safety measures such as product test and checks on foreign suppliers. The GMA, which represents both large companies, like Kraft and Heinz, as well as smaller family owned-companies, also wants more money for the Food & Drug Administration, and is working with federal authorities towards a model regulation for farms and packing houses.
And it’s not just the GMA. Everyone from tomato growers to seafood processors are lobbying Congress to improve food safety laws. Why the sudden push for more regulation from an industry once adverse to any type of oversight? Well, according to the Wall Street Journal, it’s all about self-preservation. The absence of federal safety regulation has actually worked against the industry. To make up for the federal government’s neglect, states, retailers and food processors have come up with their own safety rules. So now, the food industry has to deal with a mess of different rules, and it would be much easier for the industry if there were one set of federal regulations in place for them to follow. And, like many others, the food industry is dealing with a rising tide of cheap imports – mainly from China. One of the reasons these imports are cheap is that they often don’t comply with voluntary US safety standards. The US food industry wants to “level the playing field” by making safety standards mandatory, so everyone has to comply with them.
And while this is good news, there is a catch. According to an article dealing with the same issue in the New York Times, some new regulations can actually take rights away from consumers. Very often, industry lobbyists push for clauses in regulations that take away a consumer’s right to sue if a contaminated food or defective product causes an injury. And new federal laws can make existing stronger state laws null and void. So while it is encouraging that the food industry is finally starting to see the benefits of stronger safety regulations, these maneuvers do need to be watched.
