Feed Millers Scrambling to Meet FSMA Compliance
The Food Safety and Modernization Act (FSMA), signed into law by President Obama in 2011, is regarded as the most sweeping reform to food safety standards in the past 70 years.
Under the terms of the law, companies with more than 500 employees must already be in compliance with the Current Good Manufacturing Practice (CGMP) clause of the law, and will have until September 2017 to comply with the Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Prevention Controls portion. Smaller companies have later deadlines depending upon number of employees and levels of revenue.
For the first time, feed is defined as being food, with no differentiation between the two – and as audits of large U.S. feed mills by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are scheduled to begin in early 2017 to ensure FSMA compliance, Robert Prevendar, global managing director for supply chain, food safety, and agriculture with NSF International warns that many mills are not yet in compliance.