Food and Beverage News and Trends - August 9, 2024
This regular publication by DLA Piper lawyers focuses on helping clients navigate the ever-changing business, legal, and regulatory landscape.
- FDA invites public to take part in meeting about its emerging systematic process for post-market assessment of chemicals in food. The FDA is developing a systematic process for conducting post-market assessments of chemicals in food, such as color additives, food contact substances, additives, and GRAS ingredients. On September 25, the agency will hold a public meeting to talk about its process and to and to hear stakeholder perspectives on this work so far. The meeting will be hybrid, with limited in-person capacity. We will provide information about event timing and registration when it becomes available.
- FDA announces 2025 fee rate changes. The FDA has announced new FY 2025 fee rates, authorized under the Food Safety Modernization Act, for four of its programs as follows:
All these changes enter into effect on October 1 this year.
- USDA’s FSIS moves to ban certain poultry products contaminated by Salmonella. On July 29, the USDA announced it is proposing a rule and determination that would establish final product standards to prevent raw chicken carcasses, chicken parts, ground chicken, and ground turkey products that contain any type of Salmonella at or above 10 colony forming units (CFU) per gram/ml and any detectable level of at least one of the Salmonella serotypes that USDA identifies to be of public health significance from entering commerce. Such products, the proposed rule says, are adulterated within the meaning of the Poultry Products Inspection Act. USDA will be accepting comments on this proposed rule for 60 days.
- FDA stresses importance of FSMA compliance as a result of its herb sampling assignment. From September 2017 to September 2021, FDA collected and tested a total of 1,383 samples of domestic and imported fresh basil, cilantro, and parsley. In this first largescale sampling of fresh herbs, the agency detected Salmonella spp. in 17 out of 1,358 samples, detected C. cayetanensis in 18 out of 812 samples, and detected STEC in 1 out of 1,350 samples. FDA will use this data to develop guidance and update program priorities, including future sampling assignments and the prioritization of surveillance inspections. Given the findings of the assignment, the FDA stressed the importance of industry compliance with FSMA rules, including the Produce Safety Rule, the Preventive Controls for Human Foods Rule, the Food Traceability rule and the Foreign Supplier Verification Programs Rule.
- USDA’s FSIS is postponing its implementation of allergen sampling program. FSIS is changing the date to implement the new allergen verification sampling program from August 1 to September 1, 2024. The agency also issued two new directives related to the new sampling program.
- Deli meat recall. The Boar’s Head Provisions Company has voluntarily recalled more than 200,000 pounds of deli meats produced at its Jarratt, Virginia facility, encompassing more than 70 products, over concerns that the products may be adulterated with Listeria monocytogenes. The company is also pausing all production of ready-to-eat products at that site as the investigation into the outbreak moves forward. The USDA has linked Boar’s Head’s Strassburger Brand Liverwurst to an outbreak of Listeria monocytogenes outbreak that to date has sickened at least 34 people in 13 states. Of those patients, 33 have been hospitalized and two have died. While the USDA has linked only Boar’s Head liverwurst to the outbreak, the company states on its website, “Out of an abundance of caution, we decided to immediately and voluntarily expand our recall to include all items produced at the Jarratt facility.” The letter goes on to state: “On behalf of all of us at Boar’s Head Brand, we want to let our customers and consumers know that we deeply regret that our liverwurst products were found to be adulterated with Listeria monocytogenes. No words can fully express our sympathies and the sincere and deep hurt we feel for the families that have suffered losses and others who endured illness.”
- Survey shows many in US are confused about their sodium intake. A survey issued in late July by the International Food Information Council (IFIC) concludes that many people in the US have no idea how much sodium they are actually consuming, and also don’t have the most basic knowledge about sodium – the recommended daily intake. “Across items, people thought they were eating the recommendation,” but were actually eating far more, said Milton Stokes, IFIC senior director for food and nutrition The average US adult consumes about 3,400 mg of sodium each day, about 1,000 mg higher than recommended. The study also found that about half the respondents say they are concerned about their sodium intake, and more than half are limiting their sodium intake, or want to, but haven’t done anything to accomplish it. IFIC is a nonprofit consumer research organization whose mission is to communicate science-based information about food safety, nutrition, and sustainable food systems.
- Avian flu update.
On August 5, Colorado Governor Jared Polis extended the avian flu emergency declaration for Weld County. The outbreak in Weld County has affected a commercial chicken facility and two egg laying facilities – about 3.5 million birds are being culled. The declaration helps to unlock resources for farmers to contain the outbreak and manage biosecurity.
Colorado’s Department of Public Health and Environment is launching a publicly available data table to track human cases of avian flu. It will be updated every Tuesday and Thursday on this page. The state’s Department of Agriculture is already providing data on avian flu in dairy cattle and poultry and updates it weekly or as data is confirmed.
New research led by scientists from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston has found evidence of H5N1 infections in two Texas farmworkers not previously confirmed to have the disease. The findings, published on the preprint server medRxiv on July 31, suggest that H5N1 infections among farmworkers may be going undetected. Neither worker is included in the US 2024 total of 13 human cases of H5N1. The authors of the study stated that they were invited by farm owners to study two dairy farms in Texas as they were recovering from incursions of H5N1 virus in their cattle. The researchers also tested 14 milk samples, 9 of which (64 percent) tested positive for H5N1, indicating the presence of live, infectious virus.
On August 1, the USDA announced that it had confirmed two new outbreaks of avian flu in dairy herds in Michigan and Texas. This raises the national total to 175 dairy herds in 13 states.
Scientists are still striving to understand how H5N1 is transmitted from birds to mammals, and among mammals. A study released in late July by researchers at Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine said it has confirmed “efficient and sustained mammalian-to-mammalian transmission” of the virus between cows and from cows to cats and a raccoon. The study notes that the longer the virus remains uncontrolled, the more potential it has to adapt to become a greater threat to people. On July 31, APHIS added three more species of mammals – deer mouse, prairie vole, and desert cottontail, all collected in Colorado – to its list of US mammals in which H5N1 avian flu has been confirmed. Among other mammals on that list: cats, coyotes, cougars, black bears, bottlenose dolphins, gray seals, harbor seals, and red foxes.
