Seen any COOL labels at the meat case?

October 1 was to be the deadline for implementation of Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) of meat packages in the grocery store meat cases. There are gaping holes in the law, and locally, no one has seen any labels.

One of those "hot damn, we oughta' do that" ideas that is better in theory than execution, COOL was hijacked by the food safety crowd, so meat can be traced back to its birth in case of a public health outbreak of something like BSE, listeria or E. Coli. Instead of benign labeling of meat packages, to gain an advantage for U.S. beef over its foreign competitors, COOL has turned into a bureaucratic, expensive and onerous burden for meat producers.

The rules are so unclear, cumbersome and full of loopholes, that you may not be seeing any COOL labels anytime soon.

For one thing, meat with multiple countries of origin does not have to be labeled. This applies to a big share of meat produced in this country. Cattle imported from Mexico or Canada into the U.S., or U.S. cattle shipped to one of those countries for processing and then the meat shipped back into the U.S.--are exempt. If one parent of a carcass follows this route, the meat is exempt.

There's also a gaping hole over whose responsibility it is to do it. A carcass, or primals, may be labeled, but when cut into retail size packages at the store--things fall apart.

We're being told its just the shake-down cruise, and we'll be seeing labels shortly.

Don't hold your breath.