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Playing 'chicken' with food labels

USDA dares food processors to put 'mechanically separated poultry' in ingredient panels.

The ingredient statement of this Lipton soup package is likely to change if USDA insists on food makers identifying ?mechanic
The ingredient statement of this Lipton soup package is likely to change if USDA insists on food makers identifying ?mechanic

A wide range of food processors will have to either overhaul product labels or reconstitute products over the next year to comply with a new USDA rule on mechanically-separated poultry (MSP). The rule, issued on November 3 by the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), requires food marketers to add MSP as an ingredient to the product label by November 1996 (see PW, Dec. '95, p. 48).

The rule will affect manufacturers of more than just chicken franks and sausages, the most obvious products affected by the rule. Other products which include MSP include dry soups and flavored rice mixes.

John Toney, vice president for technical affairs at Henningsen Foods, Inc., Omaha, NE, says his company sells dehydrated MSP to food companies who use it in as many as 100 grocery shelf products. Those are products like Lipton dry chicken soup mix, Rice-A-Roni and Stove Top Stuffing. Toney is concerned that those food companies will Playing

chicken

stop buying MSP rather than add it to their ingredient panels. The fear on the part of some food companies may be that consumers will blanch at the sight of MSP on the label.

Currently, for example, Lipton lists chicken powder and chicken* (* dried) on its ingredient panel for "Soup Secrets." Nissin Foods Cup Noodles lists powdered chicken; Rice-A-Roni also lists chicken with an asterisk for dried.

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