Current good manufacturing practice and hazard analysis and risk-based preventive controls for food for animals

To help prevent food-borne illness in pets and the owners who handle pet foods, the FDA is proposing new regulation of the production of animal food.  The Proposed Rule comes in the wake of the melamine-related pet food recalls of 2007 and, since that date, of a growing number of illnesses and pet deaths that may be associated with jerky pet treats, mostly involving imports from China.  The Proposed Rule, which has a comment period that ends February 26, 2014,  follows upon the Food Safety and Modernization Act of 2010, a historic overhaul of food safety regulation that included animal food in its scope.

According to the Summary section of the Proposed Rule, the FDA “is proposing regulations for domestic and foreign facilities that are required to register under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the FD&C Act) to establish requirements for current good manufacturing practice in manufacturing, processing, packing, and holding of animal food. FDA also is proposing regulations to require that certain facilities establish and implement hazard analysis and risk-based preventive controls for food for animals. FDA is taking this action to provide greater assurance that animal food is safe and will not cause illness or injury to animals or humans and is intended to build an animal food safety system for the future that makes modern, science and risk-based preventive controls the norm across all sectors of the animal food system.”

The Proposed Rule can be found at:

https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2013/10/29/2013-25126/current-good-manufacturing-practice-and-hazard-analysis-and-risk-based-preventive-controls-for-food