Natural Meat Marketing Misled Consumers, Lawsuit Claims
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Think twice before picking “natural” ham or turkey this Thanksgiving. Recently unsealed legal evidence from a 2016 lawsuit makes the case that meatpacker Hormel misled consumers by selling the same industrially raised animals under its Natural Choice and conventional product lines.
This suit, brought by the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) and Public Justice, is one of several alleging that dominant meatpackers use misleading and under-regulated labels to meet consumer demand for more sustainable, healthy, or humane products without changing the way they raise or process livestock. Such marketing tactics deceive consumers and further marginalize the independent farmers who are raising animals in more humane and sustainable ways.
Hormel and ALDF both filed to dismiss this case last week after reaching yet to be disclosed settlement terms that will clarify Hormel’s advertising.
In 2015, the SPINS marketing agency gave a presentation at the annual conference of the largest U.S. meatpacking trade association, the North American Meat Institute, on how to capture the growing demand for organic, humanely raised, and grass-fed meats. SPINS noted that since 2012, sales of natural meat products had grown while sales of conventional meat products had plateaued. According to a slide deck obtained by ALDF and Public Justice, SPINS advised meat companies to capitalize on these trends by “premium-tizing” their conventional brands, marketing them under “clean” labels such as artisanal, uncured, gluten-free, and natural.
The term “natural” can be particularly deceptive. Research by the Natural Marketing Institute found that the majority of consumers assume “natural” claims denote animals that lived free-range, were humanely raised, and were not given growth hormones or antibiotics. This same survey found one in three shoppers did not perceive a difference between “natural” and “organic” labels, even though the organic standard is highly regulated compared to the natural standard.
USDA has not defined “natural” through a regulatory process, and the current USDA standard is that natural products cannot have artificial ingredients and must be minimally processed. Without more meaningful requirements the meat industry uses the label liberally. “The term ‘natural’ is practically unregulated,” read the SPINS slideshow. “As a result, there is little to no difference between natural meat and conventional meat.”
One of the “premium-tized” conventional brands that SPINS highlighted was Hormel’s Natural Choice line. ALDF and Public Justice allege that advertising for these Hormel products “tend to mislead [consumers] because the animals are born, raised, and killed in unnatural, unsafe, and cruel conditions,” conditions which “do not comport with reasonable consumers’ perceptions of ‘natural’ meat.”
Hormel told Reuters that it abides by USDA labeling rules and stands behind its Natural Choice products.
Despite the differences in marketing, the hogs and turkeys processed for Natural Choice deli slices and bacon were the same ones that went into Hormel’s conventional products, evidence from ALDF’s suit shows. In a deposition, Hormel’s director of procurement Cory Bollum, admitted, “There’s no segregation specifically done for Natural Choice Products,” at the slaughterhouse level.
According to testimony from Jenny-O’s vice president of animal health and food safety forms, some animals in Hormel’s Natural Choice line were fed a disinfecting chemical that contains formaldehyde as well as growth-stimulating antibiotics. Hormel said that Natural Choice products do not contain preservatives, but they contained celery juice powder, which has high levels of the preservative nitrate. Further, Natural Choice animals were raised in confinement and subject to inhumane treatment, such as castrating piglets without anesthesia and keeping pregnant sows in crates without enough space to turn around.
David Muraskin, a senior attorney with Public Justice, said Hormel’s marketing was deceptive because the company knew that most of their customers assumed “natural” products were free of nitrates or made from humanely raised animals. A Hormel survey of 263 Natural Choice shoppers’ preferred attributes in “natural” foods found that 69% were looking for animals raised without antibiotics, 72% sought humanely raised animals, and 66% valued organic practices. In sworn testimony, former Natural Choice brand manager Jeremy Zavoral acknowledged that some shoppers will see a natural label and “assume that there are other benefits to the product beyond what we actually claim.”
Muraskin noted that these deceptive marketing practices are not unique to Hormel and other dominant meatpackers use similar tactics to fend off competition from genuine humane animal operations. “By capturing these terms and then undercutting on prices you keep people who are trying to do things different on the same path,” he said. “As long as these companies can constantly misrepresent what they actually are doing, how can you ever expect an independent producer to gain access to markets?”
What We’re Reading
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Many countries promised in 2015 to halve their food waste by 2030, but according to an investigation by Reuters, very few are on track to do so. The largest per capita food wasters, which includes the U.S., have increased their food waste since 2015. (Reuters)
Private equity and real estate investors are helping drive U.S. farmland values to record highs, pricing out young or new farmers. (New York Times)