Growing Fruit and Vegetable Imports Pose Threat to American Consumers

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Growing Fruit and Vegetable Imports Pose Threat to American Consumers

Free Trade Deals Facilitate a Deluge of Uninspected Produce Products

Washington, DC – Americans are consuming more imported fresh fruit, fresh vegetable, canned and frozen produce and fruit juice than ever before, but a new law exempts much imported produce from having to be labeled with its country of origin. According to a new study by consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch, imports made up twice as much of the fresh fruit and fresh vegetables that Americans ate in 2007 as in 1993.  The share of imported processed produce Americans ate tripled and the share of imported fruit juice consumers drank increased by nearly two-thirds between 1993 and 2007.

The report, The Poisoned Fruit of American Trade Policy: Produce Imports Overwhelm American Farmers and Consumers, examined 50 commonly eaten and cultivated fruit and vegetable products, such as fresh apples, frozen broccoli, and orange juice. Most Americans are unaware that nearly half of fruit juice (49.5 percent), about a fifth of fresh vegetables (23.9 percent) and fresh fruit (22.3 percent), and nearly a sixth of processed produce (15.9 percent) were imported in 2007. Country-of-origin labeling is now required for fresh fruit and vegetables but not most processed produce like frozen vegetable mixes or bagged salad mixes.  Consumers will remain oblivious that 42 percent of the processed mushrooms eaten in America were from China, 20 percent of canned olives were from Spain, and 11 percent of the canned peaches and 8 percent of the canned pears are from China in 2007.

“Americans are eating a significant and growing volume of imported produce, much of which will not bear country-of-origin labels,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch. “The loopholes for processed food in the new country-of-origin labeling requirements will continue to allow more than 6 billion pounds of imported processed produce onto store shelves without COOL labels.”

Imported produce enters the country with almost no oversight by the Food and Drug Administration.  According to the General Accountability Office, between 2002 and 2007, FDA border inspectors examined only one in 134 shipments of produce imports, less than one percent.

“The United States imported a total of 40 billion pounds of produce in 2007, but FDA has been asleep at the switch in the face of these surging imports,” noted Hauter. “The free trade deals like NAFTA have unleashed a flood of nearly uninspected fruit and vegetable imports onto U.S. supermarket shelves.”

These imports can contain hidden dangers. FDA has reported that imported produce is more likely to contain foodborne-illness causing bacteria and illegal levels of pesticides than domestically grown fruit and vegetables. The report cites an internal FDA document (released to Food & Water Watch under a Freedom of Information Act request) that illustrates the extent of the threat by stating that "approximately half of the foods that have been associated with food borne illness have been imported."  Yet only 4,876 shipments of the studied 50 products were refused at the border by FDA for food safety concerns between 1997 and 2006, although the United States imported 164 billion pounds of the studied produce products and 7 billion gallons of juice over this period.

 Some other key findings include:

•    On average, each American consumed 31 pounds of imported fresh vegetables, 24 pounds of imported produce, 20 pounds of imported fresh fruit and 3 gallons of imported juice in 2007.

•    Fresh fruit and fresh vegetable imports grew by two and a half times between 1993 and 2007.  Fresh fruit imports rose from 2.4 billion pounds in 1993 to 6.0 billion pounds in 2007. Fresh vegetable imports grew from 3.7 billion pounds to 9.3 billion pounds over the same period.

•    Processed (frozen and canned) produce imports tripled from 2.2 billion pounds in 1993 to 7.3 billion pounds in 2007.

•    Fruit juice imports (apple, orange and grape juice) grew by 81 percent from 557.9 million gallons in 1993 to 1.0 billion gallons in 2007.

•    China has now emerged as a significant supplier of produce products – shipping one seventh (15.3 percent) of the studied imports in 2007.

To read policy recommendations and key findings from The Poisoned Fruit of American Trade Policy: Produce Imports Overwhelm American Farmers and Consumers please visit http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/food/pubs/reports/the-poisoned-fruit-of-american-trade-policy.

Food & Water Watch is a national consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, DC. Visit www.foodandwaterwatch.org.