The Food Safety and Inspection Service finalized a regulation that sets out conditions for making voluntary “Product of USA” claims for meat, poultry and egg products.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced the final rule at the National Farmers Union’s annual meeting, calling the regulation “a vital step toward consumer protection.”

The regulation has already generated some pushback from the government of Mexico. Most of the controversy surrounds claims for beef, but the general principles apply to claims like “Made in the USA” or “Product of USA” appearing on processed egg products as well. (The regulation does not apply to shell eggs since FSIS is not their primary regulator.)

FSIS officials responded to questions from UEA Further Processors Division on the implications of the rule for egg products. If hatching eggs are imported from Canada (or another country) to the United States and hatch here, then egg products manufactured from eggs laid by the resulting hens could be labeled with “Made in the USA” or a similar claim. However, if the same hatching eggs hatched in Canada and the day-old chicks were shipped to the U.S., egg products from those birds could not be labeled “Made in the USA.”

The basic principle behind the rule is that products labeled for U.S. origin must be “derived from animals born, raised, slaughtered and processed in the United States.”