Recent press reports on the meat industry practice of packaging some case-ready meat and ground beef with carbon monoxide has resulted in the refusal of many of the nation’s leading supermarket chains to sell carbon monoxide-treated meat.

The use of carbon monoxide in this type of packaging masks the natural browning of meat by imparting a bright red color on the meat’s surface, which can hide the browning of meat normally associated with spoilage and temperature abuse.

Major national supermarket chains, including Wal-Mart, Kroger, Publix, Stop & Shop, A&P, Wegmans and Whole Foods (see attached) are not selling carbon monoxide-treated meat to consumers, and some have cited potential consumer deception as a reason for their decision.

“Publix does not use carbon monoxide to disguise the color of our meat,” company spokeswoman Barbara Reid told the Atlanta Constitution-Journal. “Ethically, we disagree with it.” Saying that the use of CO could be viewed as “deceptive,” Kroger executive Lynn Marmer said the company does not sell CO-treated meat.

In a letter urging the Food and Drug Administration to rescind its approval of CO-treated meat, the Consumer Federation of America and Safe Tables Our Priority, a national, non-profit, volunteer, health organization dedicated to preventing suffering, illness and death due to foodborne illness, said carbon monoxide “hides the visual clues that consumers utilize on a regular basis to determine the safety and freshness of their meat,” adding that “…consumers are unable to determine if the meat they are purchasing for their families is truly fresh.”

“Supermarkets across the country are listening to consumer concerns about meat packaged with carbon monoxide,” said Chris Waldrop, Deputy Director of the Food Policy Institute at CFA.  “We applaud their decision to keep this deceptive practice out of their stores.”

Meanwhile, Mark Klein of Cargill Meat Solutions, the company that sells much of the carbon monoxide-treated meat in the United States, recently provided this answer to a question posed at a hearing of the City of Chicago on March 23, 2006, about the consumer’s right to know whether meat is treated with carbon monoxide:

ALDERMAN HAIRSTON: My question to you — I want you to answer the question that I asked you previously.  In other words, the consumer doesn’t have a right to know?

KLEIN: I don’t think they really would, you know, care to know.

Chicago is the first municipality in the United States seeking to protect consumers by banning the use of carbon monoxide on fresh meat.  The practice is banned in the European Union.

CFA encourages consumers to contact their representatives in Congress and call their local supermarket to protest this practice.