The state of Vermont is expanding its efforts to market Vermont products, enhance the Vermont brand and inform consumers, Gov. Peter Shumlin said Wednesday.
Shumlin also gave a spirited defense of Vermont’s efforts to enact a single-payer health care system on the eve of an expected decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on the constitutionality of President Obama’s health care overhaul law.
At his weekly press conference, Shumlin said the Agriculture and Commerce agencies were working with the Vermont attorney general to develop a new “quality seal of approval” program that will be easy for businesses to use and provide more information for consumers.
“It gives companies more predictability about whether or not their company meets the threshold for a Vermont label as well as to give consumers better information about what’s in that product,” Shumlin said.
Expected to be rolled out in the fall, the governor said the state had been working on the program since he became governor but the “ongoing effort” got sidetracked by the disaster of Tropical Storm Irene.
Shumlin framed the program as part of a larger issue of creating jobs and “growing more companies.”
“We want to ensure the Vermont label continues to be seen on as many products as possible,” he said.
The state was chagrined last week when it learned Cabot Creamery, whose name has been tied to Vermont since it was founded in 1919 though it is now owned by the Agri-Mark cooperative, was phasing the Vermont label off its dairy products. The company said it didn’t meet the state’s tough “truth-in-labeling” law, which calls for 75 percent of a product to be sourced in Vermont. Under the law’s “point of origin” rules, Cabot can’t use Vermont on the label because it gets its milk from all over New England and New York.
Shumlin, who lamented Cabot’s decision in comments last week, said the new label program’s development was under way long before the Cabot issue.
According to Lawrence Miller, secretary of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development, the state is developing a “mark” or logo, such as the mountains and moon icon it has used for years, that companies can put on their products together with the Vermont
name.
Companies will be able to do research on criteria and sign up online and if they meet standards – which are still being developed – they will be able to use the logo on everything from food products to manufactured goods to artisans’ work such as handmade knives, for example.
Attorney General William Sorrell said the complex “point of origin” rules, which were enacted six years ago with considerable hearings and discussion, will remain in place. The new program will be a mark of quality, not how much of a product is made in the state, he said.
“This is a visual mark of quality of the particular product that says the state’s standards have been met,” he said.
According to Miller, technology and consumer awareness have evolved and how Vermont uses its labels and reputation for high-quality products needs to change too. For companies, the new program will offer a “clear path to doing marketing” with the state, something that has not existed in the past.
“What I was struck by when I came in (to office) was how many calls we got asking how can we market with the state of Vermont,” Miller said.
Under the program, Miller said a consumer will be able to swipe a product with the Vermont mark with their cell phone and learn about the ingredients and the locale of the producer, which will allow a way to connect with local Vermont producers.
The governor said the program was an essential part of maintaining Vermont’s high reputation in the local food, value-added farm products and farm-to-plate movement.
“We need to continue to evolve and ensure we are doing everything in our power to strengthen those relationships,” he said, calling the program a “huge tool” to increase jobs and help businesses market Vermont products.
Asked about the state’s plans if the U.S. Supreme Court shoots down Obamacare, Shumlin said there are no contingency plans and Vermont will forge ahead with its efforts to enact a single-payer health care plan called Green Mountain Care by 2014.
“Forget the Supreme Court,” Shumlin said in a vigorous reassertion of his reasons for enacting a statewide health care plan in the Legislature. He also shrugged off the potential loss of some $400 million that would help implement Vermont’s effort if Obamacare is overturned.
“I don’t want to pretend that $400 million isn’t important to us,” he said. But Vermont will proceed anyway because “the cost of health care will kill us” if we don’t, he said.
“The stakes of this are so high,” said Shumlin, saying folks who tell him they’re scared of moving ahead are missing the point. “What I know, is what scares me,” he said.
“I know by 2015, we’re going to be spending $2,500 every year for every single living Vermonter in a state where we’re making the same money we were 10 years ago. That scares me to death,” he said.
Shumlin added that Vermont’s total health care costs now are $5 billion and expected to rise to $10 billion by 2020, an amount that puts at risk jobs, economic development and the state’s living standard.
On the critical issue of how Green Mountain Care will be financed, the governor said the five-member panel designing the single-payer system has “one of the biggest challenges a governor has ever given five people.” How the state hopes to pay for the single-payer system has been the subject of criticism from GOP and other opponents of the plan.
He said a Jan. 15, 2013, date to report to the Legislature on financing the plan will be met but not “have all the answers” worked out in detail.
“The thing that gives me hope … everybody in the developed world has got this one figured out except for us,” Shumlin said, noting myriad countries spend less and have better health outcomes than the U.S. with national health care systems.
“If we don’t get this one right, we’re in big trouble,” he said.
