Federal regulation of food, often portrayed as government efforts to protect consumers from unscrupulous industry, has shown itself this month to be a club by which one business can crush its competitors.
Specifically, a Michigan company founded by a former Democratic congressman lobbied his former Capitol Hill colleagues and the Food and Drug Administration to outlaw a competing product — carbon monoxide in meat packaging.
In the end, the Michigan firm, Kalsec, won a partial victory when a powerful lawmaker — to whose campaigns the firm’s founder had contributed — coaxed a major grocery store into foreswearing meat packaged in carbon monoxide, despite government findings that CO poses no health threats.
Paul Todd, of Kalamazoo, Michigan, is a small businessman, but he’s well connected to power. His father was Kalamazoo’s mayor and his grandfather was a member of Congress. Todd himself served a term in Congress in the 1960s before running Planned Parenthood and sitting on the Governor’s Commission on Ethics.
Todd is also the founder of Kalamazoo Spice Extraction Company, now known as Kalsec. In November 2005, Kalsec applied for a patent on their product Herbalox, an extract from the herb rosemary. The product is not a preservative; instead, it is a way to “extend the color life” of redmeat; that is, to make the meat stay red longer. This doesn’t add to the meat’s flavor, but Kalsec’s patent application explains that preserving redness “is important to consumer acceptance.”
Unfortunately for Kalsec, however, Herbalox is not the only product that can keep red meat looking pretty. Meat packers have found that injecting trace amounts of carbon monoxide into meat can achieve the same aesthetic effect as Kalsec’s process — but cheaper and without any ill health effects.
Accordingly, the same month the company filed its patent application for Herbalox, it filed a “citizen petition” with the Food and Drug Administration, calling on the agency to prohibit the use of carbon monoxide in meat packing — the chief competitor with Herbalox. However, the FDA determined that that the trace amounts of carbon monoxide posed no health threats to consumers.
In reaction, Wenonah Hauter, director of Food and Water Watch (a spinoff of Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen), expressed outrage that “the FDA put the economic interest of the industry before the health and safety of consumers.” Hauter and other “consumer advocates” argued that keeping the meat red for so long would deceive customers into thinking spoiled meat was still fresh. Ironically, Kalsec – who was leading the charge against CO packaging – was selling a product that did the same thing.
At this point, Kalsec made some important investments. In February of 2006, the company hired high-powered lobbying firm Covington and Burling, who dispatched a team of lobbyists – including a former policy advisor to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. — to both Capitol Hill and the FDA to try to ban the use of carbon monoxide in meat packaging. Kalsec also retained lobbyist Richard Ades, a former top staffer in Bill Clinton’s Agriculture Department.
At the same time, Todd cut a $2,100 check to Bart Stupak, a Michigan congressman. Since 1994, Todd has given more than $35,000 to politicians, almost all of it to Democrats.
This year Stupak introduced a bill requiring all meat packaged with CO to carry labels explaining as much, and held two hearings on the subject. While his legislation may not go anywhere, winning him as an ally has already paid off big for Kalsec.
Stupak serves on the House Commerce Committee, where he chairs the Investigations and Oversight subcommittee. Together with fellow Michigan Rep. John Dingell, chairman of the full Commerce Committee, Stupak sent a letter to meatpackers and grocers warning them about using carbon monoxide.
As you might expect when companies get letters from the Investigations chairman of the Commerce Committee, some companies went along. Giant and Safeway agreed to stop carrying CO-packaged meat, and Tyson foods agreed to stop using the gas.
Maybe they’ll all start using Herbalox. But it’s not public health, but private profit, that lies behind these efforts.
Examiner columnist Timothy P. Carney is senior reporter for the Evans-Novak Political Report. His column appears on Fridays.
