On August 28, 2024, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) issued Notice FSIS-GD-2024-0006, a new version of the Guidelines on Environment-related Labeling claims on meat, for the use and verification of information on the label of meat or poultry goods related to animal husbandry or environment-related claims.

(1) Separate animal husbandry or environment-related claims on meat or poultry commodity labels into "animal welfare" and "environment-related";

(2) Animal welfare statements may be used such as (but not limited to) : "humane feeding", "careful feeding", "caring feeding" and "ethical feeding";

(3) Environmentally relevant feeding statements: Feeding statements can be "grass-fed", "grain fed", "corn fed", "acorn fed" and "vegetarian fed", "grass-fed" animals cannot be fed grain or grain by-products, vegetarian feeding statements: Statements such as "vegetarian feeding," "raised on vegetarian feed," or "not fed any animal by-products" indicate that these animals are fed only plant-based feed and are not fed any animal products (such as whey) other than breast milk, and recommend that businesses provide data or research to substantiate the environment-related claims on their labels;

(4) The declaration of no antibiotics used in livestock or poultry products may include, but is not limited to: "No antibiotics used in the feeding process", "no antibiotics used", "no antibiotics added", "no antibiotics used in the feeding process" and "no antibiotics used in the feeding process". FSIS supports companies to demonstrate this claim by developing sampling plans to test antibiotic use;

(5) FSIS recommends the use of a third-party certification body to certify label claims.

Learn more: https://www.fsis.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media_file/documents/FSIS-GD-2024-0006.pdf