The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) has removed five non-organic nonagricultural substances—egg white lysozyme, cyclohexylamine, diethylaminoethanol, octadecylamine, and tetrasodium pyrophosphate—from the National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances governing the use of synthetic and non-synthetic substances in organic food production and handling. After determining that these substances “are no longer necessary or essential for organic handling” based on public comments and supporting documents, NOSB decided to let their use exemptions expire on September 12, 2016. According to NOSB, suitable alternatives or new processing and handling practices have eliminated the need for (i) egg white lysozyme as a “processing aid/preservative for controlling bacteria that survived the pasteurization process of milk that is used for cheese manufacture”; (ii) cyclohexylamine, diethylaminoethanol and octadecylamine “for use only as a boiler water additive for packaging sterilization”; and (iii) tetrasodium pyrophosphate “for use only in meat analog products.” See Federal Register, August…
Category Archives Issue 613
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have released an August 10, 2016, joint report examining consumers’ perceptions of “recycled content” and “organic” claims, especially for non-agricultural products and services. Using data from Internet-based questionnaires completed by 8,016 respondents, the study sought to determine whether consumers view products marketed with such claims as having “particular environmental benefits or attributes.” Among other things, FTC and USDA asked consumers to assess the accuracy of recycled content and organic claims when applied to products made with varying types of recycled materials and varying proportions of “man-made” substances. While the agencies reported no significant difference among consumer perceptions of products that used either pre- or post-consumer recycled materials, “a significant minority of respondents disagreed that the organic claims accurately describe the product” when a small percentage of materials (i.e., “less than 1%; 1% to 5%; and 5% to 10%”) was…
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