A former Woolworths executive and now the head of an Angus beef branding company, Phil Morley, has said using the term natural to describe beef could be meaningless.

''My concern is that unless there is a robust description behind what natural means, then I think our industry could find itself in a spot of bother similar to the chicken meat industry,'' Mr Morley said.

He said the beef industry needed a clear definition of what natural meant or faced action from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

He said he expected that consumers would believe ''natural'' meant that the animals were pasture-raised, grass-fed and free from antibiotics and hormone growth promotants, but the term was often loosely used.

Mr Morley, the chief executive of Certified Australian Angus Beef, which verifies the beef used by companies such as McDonald's, said the Cattle Council of Australia would be the most appropriate body to define standards.

He said there were companies which could legitimately use the term natural but there were others that should not.

The ACCC launched legal action last month in the Federal Court against Baiada Poultry and Bartter Enterprises, which supply chickens under the Steggles brand, alleging barn-raised chickens are not ''free to roam''. It is also taking action against Turi Foods, which supplies La Ionica, and the Australian Chicken Meat Federation, which represents meat chicken breeders, growers, processors and suppliers.

The federal government is expected to release its response next month to the Blewett review into food labelling.

The egg industry is also under pressure to come up with a legally enforceable definition of the term free-range.

A bill passed the upper house of the NSW Parliament last month which would enforce that eggs in NSW could be labelled as free-range only if they have come from a farm that has no more than 1500 hens a hectare.

The Australian Egg Corporation, which represents most local egg farmers, wants to allow a free-range egg farm to run 20,000 chickens a hectare to ensure the long-term sustainability of the entire free-range industry.

The truth in labelling bill has been introduced into the lower house but has not yet been debated or voted on.