Feed

By David Fairfield, Senior Vice President of Feed Services The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on June 14 issued draft guidance to assist animal food facilities needing a supply chain program to meet the requirements established under  its current good manufacturing practice, hazard analysis, and risk-based preventive controls for food for animals rule (PC animal food rule).  The animal food preventive control requirements mandated by the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) require animal food manufacturers receiving raw materials and ingredients to develop and ... Read More

The NGFA is urging the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to properly implement the exemption authority provided within the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) for grain elevators solely engaged in storing raw agricultural commodities. The Association has been circulating information on Capitol Hill in recent weeks to garner support from lawmakers. Specifically, the NGFA is urging FDA to revise its FSMA exemptions for “solely engaged” grain elevator facilities and exemptions for grain elevators that store pulse crops. The paragraphs below summarize two significant problems with FDA’s rules ... Read More

By David Fairfield, Senior Vice President of Feed Services The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the availability of an online training course on food defense awareness designed to satisfy requirements established by the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA)-related rule for Mitigation Strategies to Protect Food Against Intentional Adulteration. The course, developed by FDA in partnership with the Food Safety Preventive Controls Alliance’s (FSPCA) Intentional Adulteration Subcommittee, is being offered free of charge on the FSPCA website.  The Intentional ... Read More

By Sarah Gonzalez, Director of Communications and Digital Media  Consumers increasingly are concerned about animal welfare, which influences production practices, policy and purchasing decisions, making it crucially important to increase funding for animal welfare research in the United States, concluded a new report from the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST). “Large-scale, intensive systems predominate production animal agriculture in the United States,” CAST stated. “These systems continue to generate concerns and public debates about the treatment of farm ... Read More

By Sarah Gonzalez, Director of Communications and Digital Marketing The NGFA this week urged the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to revise its draft guidance to clarify that grain elevators that solely store and handle raw agricultural commodities are exempt from certain Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) requirements, as permitted under the law, regardless of whether they are located on the same premises as a feed mill or grain processing plant that is subject to such regulations.  The recommendation was among several made by NGFA in a statement submitted on April 18 to ... Read More

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) responded on April 5 to an NGFA inquiry regarding Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) compliance obligations associated with a facility that consists of a grain elevator and a transloading operation. NGFA submitted the inquiry to FDA on May 24, 2016. The NGFA notes that FDA’s response is consistent with the unofficial guidance that’s been passed along to the industry: 1) transloading operations are exempt from food facility registration if they don’t hold (i.e., “store” food); and 2) combining transloading and grain elevator operations at the ... Read More

By David Fairfield, Senior Vice President of Feed Services The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week made available templates that food and feed facilities and importers may use to compare the standards established in third-party audits to FDA food safety requirements. The templates are designed to facilitate comparisons between the safety standards used in third-party audits and the food safety requirements of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA)-related rules for current good manufacturing practice and preventive controls for human food (PCHF), current good ... Read More