Feed

By David Fairfield, Senior Vice President, Feed The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on April 22 issued guidance to communicate its temporary policy regarding certain requirements under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Accredited Third-Party Certification Program for foreign food entities and their products. The new guidance addresses the current challenges with conducting onsite monitoring activities required by the program during the COVID-19 public health emergency by providing temporary flexibility so that recognized accreditation bodies (ABs) can maintain the ... Read More

By David Fairfield, Senior Vice President, Feed The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on March 27 issued a fact sheet on how to safely distribute unused human food for use as animal food during the COVID-19 pandemic. Within the communication, FDA said that as a result of COVID-19 and the restrictions on in-store dining, restaurants and restaurant suppliers may have surplus food that they cannot use and are looking for ways to repurpose their inventory. In such cases, FDA states that the preferred option is to use this food as human food and the agency has provided some regulatory ... Read More

By David Fairfield, Senior Vice President, Feed The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on March 31 hosted an animal food industry stakeholder call to discuss animal food safety and food supply questions related to COVID-19. Following is a summary of the information that was shared by the agency. FDA is coordinating closely across government agencies and with the industry to monitor animal food and ingredient supply chains. At this time, no significant shortages have been identified. If companies do experience supply chain issues regarding ingredients, packaging and personal ... Read More

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on March 27 issued a fact sheet on how to safely distribute unused human food for use as animal food during the COVID-19 pandemic. Within the communication, FDA said that as a result of COVID-19 and the restrictions on in-store dining, restaurants and restaurant suppliers may have surplus food that they cannot use and are looking for ways to repurpose their inventory. In such cases, FDA states that the preferred option is to use this food as human food and the agency has provided some regulatory flexibility for that redistribution. However, ... Read More

By David Fairfield, Senior Vice President, Feed The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced March 24 that it intends to temporarily not enforce certain requirements to allow veterinarians to better utilize telemedicine to address animal health needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. “The FDA recognizes the vital role veterinarians play in protecting public health. This pandemic has had impacts on many of our everyday lives and professions, and during this time, we need to provide veterinarians with the latitude to expand the use of telemedicine in the care of animals, ... Read More

By David Fairfield, Senior Vice President, Feed The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on March 17 issued guidance to communicate the agency’s intention temporarily not to enforce supplier verification onsite audit requirements for receiving facilities and importers under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic if other supplier-verification methods are used instead. Three of the FSMA-related regulations – the Preventive Controls for Human Foods (PC Human Food) rule, Preventive Controls for Animal Food (PC Animal Food) rule and ... Read More

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced March 13 that U.S. companies interested in exporting feed additives, premixes or compound feed to China should contact FDA by no later than April 3, 2020. Interested companies are directed to provide to FDA the names and addresses of their registered facilities, as well as permission for FDA to share that data with China. Full instructions for U.S. animal food facilities can be found here. ... Read More

By David Fairfield, Senior Vice President, Feed The NGFA has published guidance for feed facilities that provides information that may be used to develop plans to minimize the introduction and spread of pathogenic animal viruses, such as the African Swine Fever virus, and prepare for and respond to a potential foreign animal disease outbreak within the United States.  This guidance document is being provided as a service exclusively to NGFA member companies. Therefore, we request that no portion of the copyrighted guidance be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means ... Read More

USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) recently issued an update on its efforts to establish a consultation board for the National Animal Disease Preparedness and Response Program (NADPRP). In its Feb. 20 update, APHIS said it is working to establish a collaborative process to award future funding under the NADPRP, as directed by the 2018 farm law. APHIS recently announced the first phase of this program by providing $5.2 million in program funds “to advance the capabilities, capacity and readiness of the nation’s animal agriculture sector responders through training ... Read More