The American beef supply chain is decidedly the world’s gold standard of safety, efficiency, and sustainability. During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, vulnerabilities in that system were brought to light in dramatic fashion. Temporary meat plant closures, and the resulting reduction in processing capacity, caused substantial backlogs in retail and foodservice deliveries. Local butchers were also overwhelmed with the influx of demand for their services, with wait times exceeding 18 months in some places. In response, Congress introduced several pieces of legislation aimed at improving resiliency within this critical food supply infrastructure.
One such bill is the Processing Revival and Intrastate Meat Exemption, or PRIME, Act. However well-intended, this legislation would severely jeopardize U.S. meat’s exemplary food safety record and could cripple demand for U.S. beef products to the detriment of family cattle farmers and the rural communities which depend on them. If enacted, custom-exempt processing facilities would be allowed to sell uninspected meat products into retail markets intrastate, meaning a package of ground beef at your local grocery store may make its way to your refrigerator without having once been examined by a food safety or sanitation expert.
The Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA), the landmark 1906 law passed on the heels of Upton Sinclair’s famous novel The Jungle, governs food safety protocols for beef. The FMIA paved the way for today’s requirement that for-sale meat products be continuously inspected by sanitation experts and meat scientists. In many meatpacking plants, this is conducted by the Food Safety and Inspection Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), though the law does allow state governmental agencies to provide this service as well, provided the standards are at least equal to those of USDA. By contrast, custom-exempt processors, while still subject to safety and cleanliness protocols, are not required to have inspectors present at all times while the facility is in operation.
Beef products are definitively safe when processed correctly but are highly susceptible to pathogens if not properly handled. This is precisely why meat and poultry are required to undergo continuous inspection, unlike vegetables or processed foods under the jurisdiction of the Food and Drug Administration which are only inspected periodically. This is critical for consumer confidence in retail beef products, but the business model for custom-exempt processors is radically different. Rather than providing a good, they provide a service to cattle owners by transforming their live animal into a consumable protein. These products can then be consumed by the owner of the live animal and are required to be marked “not for sale.”
Custom-exempt facilities play an important role in the beef market, both for the beef-eating public and cattle producers. They expand opportunities for limited direct-to-consumer marketing and the niche they currently fill is essential. But their uninspected products should not be allowed to enter retail markets. Even setting aside the food safety arguments against the PRIME Act, consider the pristine safety reputation that U.S. beef has earned among global consumers. When that safety is called into question, whether justifiably or not, demand falls. We saw that on full display when a classical case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was detected in a cull dairy cow in 2003. While there existed no threat to beef safety, the U.S. still lost export access to several high value markets—some of which were not recovered for almost two decades.
Consumer confidence in U.S. beef is deservedly high, and Congress should not jeopardize that by enacting a bill which would undoubtedly call that safety record into question. However bad the market was for cattle producers during the COVID-19 pandemic, we were able to recover from that quickly because it was a supply-side shock. Shocks on the demand side, much like BSE, are orders of magnitude more difficult to recover from.
While the PRIME Act is not a viable solution to the challenges facing the cattle and beef industries, other bills in this space are workable alternatives. The Direct Interstate Retail Exemption for Certain Transactions (DIRECT) Act, for example, would allow state-inspected meat and poultry products to be sold interstate under certain conditions. This legislation offers smaller meat processors much-needed regulatory flexibility but does so in a way that does not undermine essential food safety standards.
Congress was wise to listen to both consumers and producers when it passed the FMIA over a century ago—and like any good law, it must evolve over time to meet modern challenges. But, while that evolution must include expanded opportunities for profitability on the part of small processors and producers, we cannot afford to gamble with consumer confidence to get there.
Gene Copenhaver is a fifth-generation cattleman whose family dates to the 1850s in Washington County, Virginia. Copenhaver currently manages his family’s stocker operation in southwest Virginia.
