Natural and hormone-free were most common farm production-related claims made on fluid milk packaging, 2022

by Hayden Stewart

Food products sold at retail stores may carry various claims on their packaging, including claims about the types of ingredients in the food and how those ingredients were produced. Using 2022 retail scanner data, researchers at USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) investigated the claims that appear on fluid milk products with an emphasis on farm production-related claims. Of the fluid milk products sold at U.S. retail stores in 2022, 38.3 percent claimed to be natural, 38 percent claimed to be hormone-free, and 10.9 percent claimed to be organic.

USDA’s National Organic Program develops and enforces consistent standards for organically produced agricultural products. For instance, feed must be organically produced. Organic producers must also promote animal health without the use of antibiotics and hormones. Organic dairy farms may therefore incur higher total feed and total operating costs than similar-sized conventional dairy farms.

No regulatory definition or standards have been established for use of natural food claims—including statements like “100-percent natural,” “no artificial ingredients,” and “all-natural ingredients”—which means they are easier to make and more common than organic claims. This chart is based on the ERS report The Prevalence of Competing and Complementary Claims on U.S. Food Product Packaging: A Case Study of Claims on Milk and Yogurt, released June 2025.

Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service

To view source article, visit: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/chart-detail?chartId=113165

Organic & Non-GMO Insights October 2025