White House promotes seafood label as FDA origin guidance remains in draft

The White House published a collection of supportive industry reactions on 30 October, a week after announcing the voluntary “U.S. Caught Seafood” label as part of President Donald Trump’s fisheries strategy. The new publication is a round-up of responses, not a second launch of the label.

The White House says the label design can be downloaded from Seafood.gov. NOAA Fisheries describes it as a designation for seafood harvested by American commercial fishermen on US-flagged vessels under US fisheries management. It is intended to complement existing country-of-origin labelling, not replace it.

The Food and Drug Administration has also issued draft guidance on voluntary US-origin claims for seafood. It gives examples of wording the agency would consider truthful and not misleading, but has not been finalised and creates no new enforceable labelling duty. The Department of Health and Human Services is encouraging comments by 13 December.

Fishing groups welcomed the strategy in the White House round-up. The National Seafood Association also stressed that international sourcing remains important to feeding American families and sustaining US processing and distribution jobs. Whether the voluntary label increases sales of American-caught seafood remains an open question.