08/01/2026
🚨 The packer lobby claims mandatory country-of-origin labeling, or MCOOL, would cost over $1 BILLION every year.
Let's take a closer look.
—The packer lobby's latest attack on MCOOL comes in the form of a paper commissioned by the Meat Institute, a trade association representing the world's largest beef packers with operations in the United States. The Meat Institute has opposed MCOOL since Congress enacted it in 2002 and even sued USDA in an unsuccessful attempt to repeal it in 2013. In court, the Meat Institute argued, "In short, beef is beef, whether the cattle were born in Montana, Manitoba, or Mazatlán."
—Decision Innovation Solutions does not describe this paper as a new economic study. Instead, the “project” adjusts old data for inflation and inputs recent industry data into economic models that are 17 years old and more than a decade old.
—The paper itself acknowledges that the cost parameters "do not fully reflect contemporary macroeconomic realities,” those estimates are likely outdated, and suggests they should be updated using modern primary data. Yet those cost parameters were not updated before publishing the project.
—The authors begin with 1.1 million imported feeder cattle and ask readers to assume those cattle become 2.2 million mixed-origin steers and heifers, then increase that figure again by adding 75% of the five-year average of Canadian cattle imports, arriving at 2.61 million mixed-origin cattle. The paper provides no citation or analytical explanation for those assumptions. Yet that unsupported figure becomes the foundation for calculating 5.73 billion pounds of mixed-origin beef, which ultimately drives the paper's headline claim that MCOOL would cost between $1.27 billion and $1.45 billion annually.
—Mandatory country-of-origin labeling for beef was in effect from early 2013 until late 2015. The actual costs of compliance across the supply chain are discoverable and could be used to conduct a robust and reliable economic analysis if policymakers want to understand what reinstating MCOOL would cost today.
There is a cost to providing consumers with accurate information about the origin of their beef, but history shows those costs were minimal. MCOOL continues to apply to nearly every other major food commodity, and polling consistently shows overwhelming public support for restoring it to beef.
The opportunity to restore MCOOL for beef is now.
Call the U.S. Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected to your Senators. Urge them to support MCOOL for beef in the Farm Bill.
Read R-CALF USA's full response here: https://www.r-calfusa.com/ranch-group-calls-packing-industrys-mcool-cost-paper-overtly-biased-and-unreliable/
