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Preparing for changes to animal food industry

Stakeholders in the animal feed industry are preparing for significant changes through the FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act.

The National Grain and Feed Association, Minnesota Grain and Feed Association and Minnesota Department of Agriculture recently hosted seminars in southern Minnesota addressing how livestock food production will be affected.

Minnesota Department of Ag feed program manager Doug Lueders says one of the biggest changes has to do with Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP’s) for all feed.

“To this point, manufacturers of medicated feed had GMP’s for that manufacturing, but there’s not been GMP’s for non-medicated feeds.  That’s a major change, particularly for the ingredient manufacturers.”

He tells Brownfield GMP’s are practices that prevent adulteration of the feed. The deadlines for implementation are next fall for larger facilities and the following fall for feed mills with up to 500 employees.

Lueders says another major change involves the hazard analysis and preventative control portion of the rule.

“Preventative controls in the food world are basically a hazard and critical control point analysis.  So sites need to do an analysis of their operations and determine whether or not they have processes that need preventative controls.”

Lueders says in some instances additional record-keeping will be necessary.

The preventative control requirements go into effect a year after the good manufacturing rules.