Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling of Muscle Cuts of Beef (Including Veal), Lamb, Chicken, Goat, and Pork; Ground Beef, Ground Lamb, Ground Chicken, Ground Goat, and Ground Pork

FSIS is conforming its regulations to the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) regulations, entitled, "Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling of Beef, Pork, Lamb, Chicken, Goat Meat, Perishable Agricultural Commodities, Peanuts, Pecans, Ginseng, and Macademia Nuts." Therefore, FSIS is amending its regulations to require that a country of origin statement on the label of any meat or poultry product that is a covered commodity, as defined in AMS' interim final regulations (73 FR 45106), and is to be sold by a retailer, as also defined in AMS' interim final regulation, must comply with AMS' interim final regulations. FSIS is also amending its regulations to provide that the addition of country of origin statements on labels of meat or poultry product covered commodities that are to be sold by covered retailers and that comply with the country of origin labeling requirements will be considered to be generically approved. FSIS is not amending its regulations or labeling policies for meat or poultry products that are non-covered commodities. The effective date of AMS' interim final rule for country of origin labeling is September 30, 2008. Therefore, in order to meet the deadline, FSIS is issuing this interim final rule.