Tag: food safety

NMPF Reaffirms Milk Safety After FDA Program Suspension

Posted on by Rachel Ravencraft

The National Milk Producers Federation today reaffirmed the safety of milk, citing the numerous safeguards and rigorous testing procedures still in place after FDA announced a temporary suspension of one testing program, which the agency confirmed played a minor role in its overall food safety protocols. 

“The milk proficiency testing program is a periodic review of the testing capacities of laboratories in FDA’s network, and is not used to directly test milk or other dairy products,” an FDA spokesperson said, referring to its Grade “A” milk proficiency testing (PT) program in a statement shared with NMPF. “The temporary suspension to the Proficiency Testing program does not impact routine testing of milk destined for pasteurization, or milk and dairy testing in illness investigations. The FDA continues to have confidence in the safety of the commercial, pasteurized milk supply.” 

NMPF would like to be clear: The U.S. milk supply is safe. All routine quality and safety checks on farms, during milk transport, and at processing plants are being conducted as they always have been, in coordination with both state and federal partners.

NMPF has full confidence in the state, federal, and industry partnerships that work together to implement the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance, which has kept the U.S. milk supply safe for more than 100 years.  

NMPF Pushes Back on FDA Over Proposed Traceability Rule

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

NMPF filed comments Feb. 22 urging FDA to withdraw a proposed traceability rule that identifies what foods are high-risk and would warrant additional recordkeeping requirements to improve their traceability.

FDA proposed that all cheeses other than hard cheese should be considered high-risk foods.  FDA’s risk-ranking model, under the proposal, would place “pasteurized cheese, other than hard” as the riskiest of all foods in the marketplace — even above cheese made from raw milk, a finding NMPF thought was absurd.

This questionable ranking was partly caused by FDA adding a new criterion to its risk ranking model beyond what Congress had instructed it to do in the Food Safety Modernization Act, landmark food-safety legislation that became law in 2011. FDA added consumption data to the model, which had the effect of increasing a food’s risk rating due to its popularity. NMPF stated in its comments that popularity and risk do not go hand-in-hand — nor can FDA override what Congress has directed.

The comments also took issue with the agency’s interpretation that cheese made with pasteurized milk is not a food that has been subjected to a kill step, and therefore that full recordkeeping provisions should apply. Food subjected to a kill step has significantly fewer recordkeeping requirements, according to the proposed rule.

This rule, if put into effect, would increase consumer confusion, as FDA has long told consumers to choose pasteurized cheeses over raw-milk cheeses based on food safety concerns.

NMPF reviewed comments filed by the International Dairy Foods Association and supported their filing in its comments.