Many of you may have received notice either from the FDA or AAFCO or both regarding the FDA’s policy regarding the AAFCO feed ingredients. (If not, you can find the announcement here:
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You may have asked yourself: What does this mean for me?
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The long answer to your question is contained in this excellent podcast regarding FDA AAFCO MOU pet food/feed ingredients. LISTEN HERE
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The short answer is this:
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Basically, the ingredient definition process at AAFCO was apparently always meant to be temporary. Once IDC (the Ingredient Definition Committee) approved an ingredient, the industry was supposed to go the next level with FDA and get full on ingredient approval. Industry never went that extra step. So what the FDA is saying with the announcement below is that the FDA is going to allow the 500 ingredients currently in the AAFCO OP to slide (grandfather them in and not force industry to obtain full FDA approval for each item). Any new ingredient needs to go through the entire FDA approval process.
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What we still don’t know is if at some point, the FDA is going to change their mind about the prior 500. If the FDA changes their mind, industry will need to spend a lot of money to achieve full FDA approval on each of the 500 items.
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This decision does not affect our manufacturers because our manufacturers are using neither waste products nor minuscule derivations of foodstuffs.
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We use food. Food is food.
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The only fresh food manufacturers this policy might affect would be the ones who add synthetic vitamins and minerals. Those may have to go through some kind of an approval process with the FDA at some unknown point in the future.
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Please contact your fresh food trade association representative at support@ngpfma.org if you have questions.
