Once again I am using this blog to complain about the Federal Government. I don’t want to appear fixated, but they keep giving me lemons so I am going to make lemonade.
Our saga begins with the Food Safety Inspection Service’s (FSIS) remarkable silly labeling procedures. Every product we make for wholesale must have an approved label on file that complies with federal regulations. That doesn’t sound so terrible does it? Would it sound worse if I told you that a copy of the label and corresponding form must be sent in duplicate to the Label and Program Delivery Division for approval and that until they mail the approved label and form back you cannot sell the product in question? Anyone who has had the misfortune of working with a government agency knows that an efficient response time is a foreign concept and anyone expecting such a service is being discretely measured for a straightjacket. Back in the days of our innocence we did what our inspectors told us: submit the labels for federal approval and then sweat bullets until we heard back three to six weeks later whether or not we could label and sell our products. One day, in desperate frustration, I called the FSIS office in Washington to see what else I could do to speed this approval process along, as it was slowly killing the butchery and driving me towards the door of a padded cell. The woman I eventually reached on the phone was an angel; seriously, if I knew her name I would nominate her for a Nobel Prize. She cut through the official jargon and told me plainly that there was a miraculous alternative called Generic Approval. As long as we met all of the requirements listed on the FSIS Labeling website, we could attach a copy of the label to its form, stick it in the filing cabinet and call it a day. No waiting more waiting on Washington to allow us to sell sausages. The only snag with this brilliant proposal was that if we made any special claims such as “No Nitrates Added” or “Gluten Free” these labels would have to be approved by a man on Uncle Sam’s payroll. Well at least we’d have something to sell while we waited. The next day I walked up to our inspector with a file of Generically Approved Labels and I’d swear she almost seemed disappointed we’d discovered the loophole.
Fast forward to this November. We have been working with Henderson’s Best Produce to make our Apple Bratwursts using their apples in their markets. This is a fantastic opportunity for us and we are anxious to start working on it. Everything has been ready for weeks except the labels. We sent in our application and about two weeks after mailing it (they absolutely will not answer your phone call before those two weeks are up) called the Status Hotline for an update. They had no idea what I was talking about. It must have been lost in the mail, the woman on the other end of the phone said in a tone of voice that totally made it sound like it was my fault. She supposed I could fax it over, so I faxed all afternoon until they had a draft they could inspect in minute detail. Two more weeks of nail biting and it was still being processed. Enough. Last Straw. Absolute Limit.
I spent the weekend in Washington, DC visiting friends and on Monday morning I presented myself at the security desk of the USDA George Washington Carver Center to bang a fist and get my label. Clearly no one just pops in for a visit at the USDA because my arrival was greeted with unrestrained wonder by the friendly security staff. They were sympathetic to my plight and perfectly willing to give me a pass to the right office; the problem was that I didn’t have a specific office. All I knew was the voice on the other end of the Labeling and Program Delivery Division Status phone who had never mentioned her name and she was inconveniently away from her phone. Not to worry, I said, I’d call the Radish and have them look up the name on a federally approved label and then Security could tell that person I wanted to speak to them. I got the name, but Security shook his head. That was just a worker who came in and out; I needed to give them the name of a supervisor. Stunned and beginning to get desperate I called our wonderful Area Supervisor for help. He was on the road inspecting facilities, but put me in touch with a helpful woman at his office in Raleigh who started searching and promised to call me back soon. Somewhere in the middle of all of these phone calls, the remarkably kind security lady went up to the FSIS office to explain what was going on. Mr. Security did his part by looking at me with pity and continuing to call Label Status. Finally he struck gold and Status came on the line. She was shocked I was there in person and was extremely reluctant to speak to me in person. Eventually, after realizing I wasn’t leaving until I spoke to someone face to face, she promised to send someone to escort me to the FSIS office. Mr. Security was beaming as he took my ID and got me a visitor’s pass and I’d like to think he was awfully impressed by my determination. As I passed through the metal detectors, the inspired security lady who went to the FSIS office came back with the Department Director. Madam Director listened to my plight, apologized profusely for the department’s losing our application, promised they would make things right and then went to lunch.
After this things moved along rather quickly. My escort arrived and led me through the gleaming new building and a maze of cubicles to the FSIS wing while I told her my story. She looked at me strangely and said “Well that’s your problem. You shouldn’t have made the special claims of ‘Gluten Free’ and ‘No Nitrates Added.’” This floored me. I would like to think that anyone connected with the food industry, like the Food Safety and Inspection Service, would know that these are the industry buzz words and huge selling points for products. I thought about explaining all this too her, but we were out of hallway and I had been crusading for 45 minutes to get to this office and I was tired. Within minutes of arriving at her cubicle I had my approved label in hand and was being politely escorted back to the front door. And just like that the battle was finished. Over a month of arguing, stressing, talking to the Status Line about processing culminated in two minutes of polite conversation with a lady in Beltsville, Maryland.
During the five-hour drive home my initial triumph and relief about the label approval was replaced with frustration for the Labeling Program’s ignorance and nonchalance for the products they are validating. Walking through those rows of cubicles I can see how easy it is for workers to lose touch with the real world; the Internet must be their only relief from mind-numbing boredom. However, the Internet offers more than Hulu and Facebook and perhaps FSIS workers could spend less time on these sites and more time learning about the industry they are regulating. I assure you small businesses everywhere would appreciate it. In the mean time we’ll just keep drinking our lemonade and check our pigs for wings.
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