Michael Taylor, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine, is trying to calm fears over the fate of human food byproducts – particularly spent grains from breweries – going into animal feed when the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) is fully implemented. “We’ve heard from trade groups and members of Congress, as well as individual breweries raising concerns that FDA might disrupt or even eliminate this practice by making brewers, distillers, and food manufacturers comply not only with human food safety requirements but also additional, redundant animal feed standards that would impose costs without adding value for food or feed safety,” Taylor wrote in an agency blog Thursday. “That, of course, would not make common sense, and we’re not going to do it,” he stated. Taylor added that FDA views the potential for the practice to cause harm to animals “minimal, provided the food manufacturer takes common sense steps to minimize the possibility of glass, motor oil or other similar hazards being inadvertently introduced.” Echoing what Dan McChesney, director of FDA’s Office of Surveillance and Compliance, told Food Safety News last week, Taylor said that FDA is working to clarify language regarding human food byproducts and will include these changes in this summer’s reissued proposals.
