FDA issues FSMA guidance for US feed mills
The agency has finalized its Guidance for Industry (GFI) #245: Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls for Food for Animals to support feed facilities subject to the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls for animal food.
The FSMA guidance, it reported, provides detailed information to help feed mills anticipate possible food safety hazards, identify risk-based preventive controls to prevent or minimize those hazards, and create and implement a plan to keep unsafe animal food from entering the marketplace
The document provides instruction on:
- How to recognize and evaluate biological, chemical (including radiological), and physical agents that are known or reasonably foreseeable hazards in manufacturing, processing, packing, and holding of animal food,
- Ways to identify and implement preventive controls for hazards that require a preventive control in animal food,
- Components of preventive control management such as monitoring, corrective actions, and verification, and
- Recordkeeping requirements associated with the food safety plan and the implementation of such a plan.
The FDA said it received numerous comments from stakeholders, which it considered when finalizing the guidance.
In terms of amendments to previous guidance, the agency has clarified that not all the hazard examples in the document are applicable to all animal food or all plants:
“Facilities should use the hazard information in Chapter 3 of the guidance as they consider whether particular hazards are known or reasonably foreseeable for their animal food.”
The regulator has also added more information, resources, and examples of certain hazards in animal feed, including information on recalls that have occurred since the draft guidance was published.
