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NCBA works behind scenes on fake meat policy

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association says it’s working behind the scenes to protect the integrity of beef amid emerging non-meat products coming to market, “We don’t want companies that are producing meat in a lab to be able to use a label “clean” because that disparages our own product. We’ve been working behind the scenes on this issue because, really, that’s the quickest way to get things done when we have a Congress and we have an administration that’s on our side.”

That’s Danielle Beck, NCBA’s director of governmental affairs, who says filing petitions with the USDA to protect the nomenclature of beef and beef products is not effective because it can take years to even receive a reply.

NCBA members adopted policy at their recent convention that Beck says will be a long-term strategy addressing not just plant-based products on the market now, but future products such as meat grown in a petri dish, “We want to ensure that product labels accurately describe the product and do not disparage beef. And we want to make sure that there’s absolutely no misinformation or confusion being sold to consumers when they’re at the grocery store looking for healthy, safe and nutritious beef products.”

Beck made her comments on an NCBA podcast at a D.C. restaurant where she and other NCBA staffers sampled the plant-based “Impossible Burger” and two other fake meat burgers. They say they tasted nothing like beef.