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November 11, 2024

The Costco butter disaster illustrates why big government must go

By Andrea Widburg

Few regulatory agencies seem familiar with the expression, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” Common sense also seems alien to them. How else can one explain that the FDA pushed Costco to recall 80,000 pounds of butter because the packaging didn’t have an allergy warning saying that the “cream” listed on the ingredients is a form of milk?

Although few know it, the FDA’s genesis was one of the better things to come out of the progressive movement. When it was founded in 1906, pharmacists and food and cosmetics manufacturers were dumping anything into their products, whether to bulk them up for more profit or to make them look or taste better. Even by the mid-1930s, it was a relatively toothless organization. That’s how, in 1937, the premodern antibiotic Elixir Sulfanilamide killed over 100 Americans. The resulting Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 gave the FDA some teeth.

Image by AI.

Those teeth aren’t necessarily a bad thing. In 2008, in China, a country with communist morals and no FDA, Sanlu Group put melamine in milk and infant formula to artificially boost the apparent protein content. The resulting product caused kidney damage in infants, resulting in 300,000 affected children, 54,000 of whom were hospitalized. The Chinese government eventually executed two men for murder.

However, a little regulation can go a long way—and it’s gone way too long when it results in the complete absence of common sense. That’s what happened when the FDA saw a Costco butter package:

Costco was forced to recall nearly 80,000 pounds of butter because the label failed to mention that the kitchen staple contains milk — and many social media users are rolling their eyes at the dairy dilemma.

The FDA sent out an initial recall for 79,200 pounds of Kirkland Signature butter due to the undeclared allergen in October. Packages for both the salted and unsalted Kirkland Signature Sweet Cream Butter list cream as an ingredient, but do not include an allergy warning that the butter “Contains Milk.”

The article is accurate. The FDA’s site explains that the recall was because “Butter lists cream, but may be missing the Contains Milk statement.” It also says that the recall was “voluntary.” That’s the kind of “voluntary” that happens when the mob is breathing down your neck.

X users were appropriately derisive because, from 30,000 miles up, it’s funny that butter, the ultimate dairy product, was pulled for failing to say that it was the ultimate dairy product:

Joking aside, there are two things going on here. First, there’s the assumption (or the sadly real possibility) that Americans are this stupid. Is it possible, in 2024, that people with serious milk allergies do not understand that butter and cream are in the milk family? Given the state of modern education, it’s possible, but it’s more likely that the bureaucrats only think they’re that stupid.

Second, we’re witnessing a bureaucracy that has gone far beyond its mandate of protecting people. This, in turn, has a few components.

There’s the natural rigidity of the bureaucratic mindset.

There’s also the legitimate fear that if you let individual bureaucrats flex the rules, soon there’ll be no rules, or they’ll be applied unevenly or with bias. Of course, as we saw with the FEMA official telling subordinates in hurricane-ravaged Florida not to offer federal benefits to houses with Trump signs, the problem isn’t rogue individual bureaucrats. It’s an in-house mindset that gives all employees permission to discriminate.

Finally, a bureaucracy needs to ensure it exists in perpetuity. This means that it must always look busy and important.

No matter what, the FDA’s attack on Costco’s butter perfectly exemplifies the bureaucratic overreach stifling America. Costco pulling its butter will not save lives, but it will drive up prices. It’s to be hoped that the new Trump administration manages to separate the still-worthwhile wheat in the administrative state from the overwhelming amount of wasteful, abusive chaff...and then throw all that chaff overboard.

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