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The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) recently released a guidance document to help companies determine whether their operations are exempt from the inspection requirements of the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA). This guidance marks FSIS’s first significant attempt to articulate policy addressing the applicability of its retailer and restaurant…

On May 3, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) issued its proposed rule implementing the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard (NBFDS) passed by Congress in July 2016. AMS is proposing a crop-based approach, where disclosure would be required when a food is or contains a crop, or a derivative of a…

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a final rule extending the compliance date for the final rules revising the requirements for the nutrition and supplement facts labels and the declared serving sizes and reference amounts customarily consumed (RACCs). The final rule extends the compliance date for manufacturers with $10 million or more in…

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) recently issued a final rule withdrawing the Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices (OLPP) Final Rule published in the Federal Register on January 19, 2017. The OLPP rule promised to impose various animal handling and raising requirements on livestock and poultry labeled Organic, but it…

U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Sonny Perdue announced a formal agreement on January 30, 2018, intended to increase coordination and collaboration between the two agencies. The high-level agreement is limited on details, but includes commitments to developing interagency working groups for the following…

Earlier this spring, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued additional guidance for agencies on implementing Executive Order (EO) 13771, entitled “Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs.”  EO 13771 established the expectation that for every new regulatory action an agency issues, it must offset the cost of the regulatory action with two…

The Trump Administration recently released its Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 budget request. The FY 2018 budget request is notable because it proposes dramatic cuts to both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), among other agencies. Presidential budget proposals are at most a starting point – with Congress ultimately…

Following the release of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) nutrition labeling revisions in May 2016, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) is proposing to amend the nutrition labeling requirements for meat and poultry products. The proposed revisions parallel almost exactly FDA’s final nutrition labeling revisions.  Comments are due 60…

Consumers will have greater access to Omega fatty acid content on meat, poultry, and egg product labels based on new guidance issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS). Under these guidelines, FSIS will permit on labels factual statements identifying the amount of Omega fatty acids per serving, although qualifiers…

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) released its final pathogen reduction performance standards for Salmonella and Campylobacter in raw chicken parts and not-ready-to-eat (NRTE) comminuted chicken and turkey products, entitled New Performance Standards for Salmonella and Campylobacter in Not-Ready-to-Eat Comminuted Chicken and Turkey Products and Raw Chicken Parts and…