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Reportable Food Registry Compliance Guide Available from AFIA 10/13/2009

Reportable Food Registry Compliance Guide Available from AFIA

The Reportable Food Registry was created by Congress in the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007.

On Sept. 8, 2009, the Food and Drug Administration announced the opening of an electronic portal for reporting “reportable foods,” the term the act uses to describe products that have the reasonable potential of causing or having caused a serious, adverse health consequence or death in humans or animals.

This legal standard that originally appeared in the Bioterrorism Act of 2002 is best described in the FDA’s Class recall found here. By looking at the Class II and Class III recall standards, firms may determine if a product event could be classified as a Class I recall and thereby become a “reportable food.”

With its legal counsel, the American Feed Industry Association created a compliance guide for member-firms to turn to when determining how and when to report a “reportable food.” There still are some issues to be clarified by FDA, and this guide details them. As with previous such guides, FDA is likely to provide updates occasionally, and AFIA will pass the updates along to members as they occur.

The new provision applies to all feed, pet food and feed ingredients, and firms must report to FDA within 24 hours a “reportable food” once the firm determines that a product is a “reportable food.”

For instance, if a customer reports to a firm that there are animal deaths and alleges the firm’s feed is the cause, that claim does not automatically make the firm’s feed a “reportable food.” In the normal course of verifying customer complaints, the firm will take samples, look at its records and may talk to experts about the feed the animals consumed and the customer’s on-farm practices—all of which assist in helping the firm determine if the feed was the cause of the animal deaths.

If the firm decides that, indeed, its feed did cause the animal deaths, then the firm has 24 hours to report that finding to FDA using the electronic portal.

AFIA’s guide describes how the portal works and what is required for reporting. You may access the guide here.

You may access FDA’s Question and Answer Guide with this link.

You may access the electronic portal and begin reporting a “reportable food” using this link.

For more information about the Reportable Food Registry, contact AFIA Vice President Richard Sellers at rsellers@afia.org or (703) 558-3569.

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AFIA Safe FeedSafe Food Program 9/2/2009

Give your customers “Peace of Mind” with this seal.

FMS recognizes and congratulates customers who participant in the American Feed Industry Association Safe Feed/Safe Food Certification Program.

The American Feed Industry Association, the world's largest organization devoted exclusively to representing the business, legislative and regulatory interests of the livestock feed and pet food industries, established the Safe Feed/Safe Food Certification Program in 2004. The mission of the Safe Feed/Safe Food Certification Program is to establish and promote generally accepted food safety guidelines designed to ensure continuous improvement in the delivery of a safe and wholesome feed supply for the growth and care of animals.

The Safe Feed/Safe Food Certification Program is a voluntary, third-party-certified initiative designed for feed mills and feed- and ingredient-related facilities in the United States and Canada. The program establishes comprehensive standards of excellence that go beyond existing regulations to show leadership and maximize food and feed safety. Communicating food safety risks to the industry, building consensus among the segments of the industry, continuing the education process and enhancing consumer confidence in the feed and food supply are all important aspects of the program.

Healthy, productive animals mean a safe, sound food supply. And it starts with "Our Responsibility, Our Promise" to provide the best feed for dairy and beef cattle, swine, horses, poultry, fish and companion animals.

For more information: http://www.safefeedsafefood.org/main/home.cfm?Category=Home&Section=Main

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10 Ideas That Will Change Poultry Nutrition and Health 7/28/2009

In the view of one prominent poultry scientist, nutrition is on the edge of breakthroughs.

Poultry nutrition is "on the cusp" of breakthroughs that will make production more efficient, according to Dr Peter Ferket, professor of poultry science, North Carolina State University. "Efficiency has become the mantra of everyone" because of the economic crisis, Ferket said at the first WATT Online Animal Nutrition and Health Forum April 29.

Here is Dr. Ferket's Top 10 List of Future Developments:

Computational knowledge to optimise poultry nutrition programmes

Replacement feed ingredients

Enhancement of nutritional value of feed by enzyme supplementation

Nutritional effects on gut ecology

Nutritional modulation of gut "health"

Pronutrient synergy

Feed science and nutrient utilisation

Neonatal or perinatal nutrition

Nutrigenomics

Epigenetic programming

We invite you to read the details on the above mentioned points in the recent Watt Poultry USA article link we have provided.

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Do You Make The Grade? A Report Card for Your Feed and Grain Business 4/16/2008

Feed & Grain Magazine has recently published a series of articles that may be of interest to management staff of feed manufacturers. We’d like to share the link to the articles with you.

How do you rate your businesses performance in key areas of emphasis as management, personnel and finances? In this first issue, we examine ways to evaluate performance and take actionable steps to improve your business.In part two, we look at several new metrics you can use to rate your businesses performance in key areas such as business planning, marketing and communications. We examine ways to evaluate performance and take actionable steps to improve your business.
Contributors: Dr. John Foltz & Dr. Christine Wilson

Visit this link to Feed & Grain Magazine and view the complete series of articles and helpful scorecard templates.

http://www.feedandgrain.com/publication/bio.jsp?contribId=5&pubId=1

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NGFA - FDA's Bioterrorism Recordkeeping Regulations 4/28/2006

A Compliance Guide for Grain Elevators, Feed Manufacturers, Feed Dealers, Integrators, Grain Processors and Transporters.... The FDA's bioterrorism recordkeeping regulations apply to those who receive, store, manufacture, process, pack, transport, distribute or import raw grains and oilseeds, feed, feed ingredients, food or other agricultural products within or into the United States. Such entities are required to establish and maintain records sufficient to identiry what the regulations call the "immediate previous source" (the supplier/seller) from which the product was received and the "immediate subsquent recipient" (the receiver/buyer) to which the product was shipped as well as the transporters used to haul such products. Put simply, it is a one-step-back and one-step-forward product-tracing recordkeeping requirements. The recordkeeping requirement include linking inbound deliveries with outbound shipments, to the extent such information is "reasonably available". The recordkeeping regulations take effect for covered activities occuring on or after JUNE 9 for companies with 11 to 499 full-time employees and on DEC. 11 for companies with 10 or fewer full time employees. The recordkeeping requirements took effect on DEC 9, 2005 for large companies - those with 500 or more emplyoees. Click on the above link to for your copy of the guide.

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