NDSU, others prep food firms on expanded safety standards

FARGO, N.D. -- North Dakota government organizations are trying to help

the state's food companies get ready to comply with new and emerging

rules from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

In 2011, Congress passed the Food Safety and Modernization Act. The

act directed the FDA to apply stronger food safety risk prevention

standards for all food processing -- beyond the meat and poultry

products that already have them.

David Saxowsky, a North Dakota State University associate professor in

the Agribusiness and Applied Economics department in Fargo, says the

expanded standards are similar to a license system called Hazard

Analysis and Critical Control Point Practices. Essentially, HACCP

calls for "documented preventative controls" against contamination of

food products.

As an example, Saxowsky says expanded FDA rules for the first time

would apply to a company that cleans soybeans and puts them into a bag

for direct consumer consumption. The rules are designed to minimize

risks in food adulteration or contamination.

"It's about how they can minimize the risks," Saxowsky says. "The

companies need to make plans and document things on an ongoing basis."

It'll likely be two years before companies need to comply with the

rules, but they need to start thinking about them. The FDA published

its first of two sets in January. A 120-day comment period runs

through May 16. Saxowsky says it isn't clear how much compliance will

cost.

Educating those affected

Organizations are trying to create more awareness of the changing

standards. On Feb. 19, the North Dakota Trade Office, the North Dakota

Department of Agriculture and NDSU included the issue on a panel at

their Global Business Connections conference in Bismarck.

NDSU is scheduling two half-day sessions on the topic -- April 8 at the

Carrington Research Center and April 12, at the Red River Valley

Fairgrounds. Both sessions start at 1 p.m., Saxowsky says.

Also, on March 12 and 13, NDSU will host the first of two workshops

with Rob Maddock, an NDSU associate professor of animal sciences, who

has experience in the HACCP-like rules already in place for meat. The

second workshop has not been scheduled.

The FDA has issued two sets of several expected proposed regulations

to implement the act. The two involve produce safety and preventive

controls for other categories. The act calls for good manufacturing,

packing and handling practices, as well as "risk-based preventative

controls."

Dave Phillips, a feed specialist with the state agriculture

department, says the state has eight feed manufacturers that are

already FDA-regulated. Most are in the west and southwest part of the

state. All of those companies manufacture feeds that include some

medication that requires a withdrawal period at the lowest use rate,

or have some kind of carcinogenic property. About 60 commercial,

state-licensed feed manufacturers that may have to meet expanded

standards operate in the state. Among those are ethanol companies that

produce distiller's grains.

FDA has said that if an entity is just receiving a commodity, storing

it and moving it on, it exempt. That includes grain elevators,

Phillips says.

Kenan Bullinger, director of the North Dakota Health Department's

Division of Food and Lodging, says many of the state's larger

companies that produce food for human consumption (sugar beet

companies, pasta and some larger bakeries, among others) are already

under FDA inspection jurisdiction because of their interstate

distribution of product. Bullinger says companies that do "special

process at retail" -- things such as smoking, curing and vacuum-packing

-- also have special rules.

Bullinger says he doesn't know how many other companies might be

affected. But he says it's hard to educate people about the new rules

because they're not yet final.

"It's a waiting game," he says. "You can talk about the act, as it

passed Congress, but only two -- produce standards and risk-based

preventive controls for human food -- have come out."

Copyright 2013, Agweek.