Issues: Country of Origin Labeling

Recordkeeping Scenarios

The following questions and answers were asked during the August 6, 2008 PMA/Western Growers Webinar on the USDA's interim final rule on mandatory country of origin labeling. PMA thanks USDA for answering these questions, thereby providing members and industry with the agency's interpretation on various COOL scenarios as they relate to recordkeeping situations supply chain partners may experience.

What kinds of records does a supplier need to keep in order to be COOL compliant? Suppliers must provide COO information to their customers. Various forms of documents are acceptable; generally the records maintained in the normal course of business should be sufficient as long as they contain COOL information for the retailer. Are they the same records needed for traceback and recall? For records needed for traceback and recall, please contact the FDA at www.fda.gov.

What if you have a carton with 60 bunches of cilantro; does each bunch have to have a individual tag, with Certificate of Origin? The regulations do not require each bundle to be labeled. COO information may be provided on transactional documentation such as the invoice or bill of lading.

Does including COOL on the invoice satisfy retailer notification? Yes, if you are the supplier.

What are the requirements to include the country of origin on the Bill of Lading given to the trucker? The bill of lading is one of many types of documents on which you can declare the country of origin information.

Does the labeling have to be on the BOL and the carton? No, the labeling does not have to be on both. Labeling may be on individual boxes, labels on the product or via other documentation.

For shipper record keeping, is a bill of lading for fresh produce containing the correct COOL information acceptable? Yes.

Did I understand correctly that shippers and suppliers are not required to show country of origin on the bill of lading? On the bill of lading it is not required, but some sort of documentation as to COO is.

In reference to record keeping: Are Supplier invoicing and Bills of Lading required to Notate Country of Origin? Even if Packaging and Shipping containers so notate? If not by USDA, will retailers require for their record keeping? Suppliers must maintain records to establish and identify the immediate previous source and immediate subsequent recipient of a covered commodity for one year from the date of transaction. Suppliers may label the master container, pre-label the product or provide supplier contact information and product country of origin information in documents (bills of lading or invoices) accompanying the product. For retailers, for covered commodities that are not pre-labeled, their records must identify covered commodity, the retail supplier and country of origin. Such records may be maintained at the store or at the corporate office.

Consolidated product at shipping point...can we attach the consolidated BOL with the Consolidator's BOL? Is that sufficient? Suppliers may label the master container, pre-label the product or provide supplier contact information and product country of origin information in documents (bills of lading or invoices) accompanying the product.

Would records have to be maintained in store for items that have a PLU sticker with origin on product? A PLU sticker that identifies origin and provides supplier information as to who made claim of origin is sufficient.

Will the law require documentation of COO on the BOL, ASN and/or Invoice? You may provide the information on a variety of documents including BOL and invoice.

According to the Interim Final Rule, “records maintained in the normal course of business that verify an origin claim” will suffice. However, do the existing records (inventory, BOL, invoices, passings, etc.) need to declare item-level COO to satisfy the verification process should USDA representatives and/or retailers request such proof from a producer and/or supplier? The records must list all the origins if there is more than one origin.

Does each line item on a bill of lading need to state the COO or if all line items are from the same COO can one statement be used? One statement can be used if the items are all from the same origin, however if there is more than one origin then you would have to list the different origins appropriately.

If you put COOL information in a shipping container, are you still required to provide the same information on an invoice? No.

Furthermore does that declaration need to follow thru on each passing (ie: Bill of Lading, Customer Sale Confirmation, Invoice, etc.) At each level of the supply chain, each supplier must maintain records to establish and identify the immediate previous source and immediate subsequent recipient of a covered commodity. However, COO information does not have to be on every document associated with the transaction, i.e., it does not need to be on both the invoice and the bill of lading.

On bills of lading stored, do those need to be store by division or must they be stored at store level? If the bills of lading contain the COO information, they could be maintained in any location.

Will retail suppliers have to have COOL on their invoices by product and will that be sufficient for store record keeping? COOL on an invoice by product supplied would be sufficient record keeping.

When the retail warehouse puts together an order to be delivered to a store, does the BOL or picking document to the store have to have COOL? If it is a retail warehouse such as a Wal-Mart that is distributing the item to their stores, it would not be necessary as long as the retail warehouse has the appropriate documentation to indicate country of origin information. However, since we cannot discern if this is what you are indicating, please clarify your question or provide an example and submit it to COOL@usda.gov.

Does the bill of lading need to state pineapple from Costa Rica, if the ready-to-eat fresh pineapple is in a plastic container and labeled pineapple from Costa Rica? No, labeling on the consumer-ready packages is acceptable as long as the supplier making the country of origin claim is identified.

Regarding the "One step forward / One step back" requirement: Does this mean that the supplier or grower needs to maintain their own records for harvest (one step back) and shipping (one step forward), in addition to just supplying COOL information to the retailer? Yes. The supplier must maintain records to establish and identify the immediate previous source and immediate subsequent recipient of covered commodity for 1 year from the date of the transaction. If the supplier is licensed by or subject to the PACA, the records must be maintained for 2 years.

If the product's country of origin identification is only on the container, how does the retailer keep records for one year? The supplier must provide some type of documentation. The retailer can maintain documentation to provide information as to the origin of the product while the product is on hand at retail. Documentation may be kept at the retail store or at corporate level.

If we use the BOL instead of the invoice, is this sufficient? Can you also clarify what detail is required? For example, if we ship a load that is from 2 countries, do we have to have two line items indicating the quantity of each? This assumes the master shipping carton is labeled. Yes, the BOL is a sufficient document. The country of origin must be specific as to the product if it is obtained from two different countries. In addition, the master shipping container may list country of origin information as well.

So, the country of origin does not have to be on a bag of potatoes, as long as it is identified on other paperwork like a bill of lading or an invoice and not otherwise required by the retailer, right? Yes.

How far does COO on the invoices/BOL's go? What if a pallet of product is sold to a retail customer, the invoice/BOL contains 1 product line with 100 cases, but the pallet consists of cases from multiple countries. Although all cases have the correct COO information on it, on the BOL it might prove to be very difficult to make the distinction. Would it be enough to have the different countries listed on the BOL or does every box need to be accounted for on the BOL separately? The cases would be sufficient for the retailer to rely on it for country of origin information.

As a supplier, as an attempt to reduce the number of pages of a Bill of Lading, can we group mix product on the BOL by COO and just print a divider between each COO groups of product instead of having to print 2 lines for every product? The regulations do not specify how the information should be listed on the BOL, as long as all the COO information is provided.

Listening to the answers concerning product labeling it sounds as if COOL is suggesting the product itself (i.e., tomatoes) does not need to be labeled if the box and/or B of L states COO. This sounds as if the COO is more relaxed than more stringent. Individual labeling is not necessary as long as the COO information is on the transactional documentation and provided to the consumer at retail.