FDA reopens comment period on food facilities

03/12/2013 7:10:21 PM
Coral Beach

The Food and Drug Administration is reopening the comment period for a draft risk assessment for certain food facilities that includes farm packing operations for fresh fruits and vegetables. The risk assessment is mandated by the Food Safety Modernization Act.

Comments on the document “Draft Qualitative Risk Assessment of Risk Activity/Food Combinations for Activities (Outside the Farm Definition) Conducted in a Facility Co-Located on a Farm” are now due May 16, FDA officials said March 12.

May 16 is the same day comments are due on FDA’s proposed preventive controls rule and the proposed produce safety rule.

The FDA said the extension was scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on March 13.

The extension is in response to three comments the agency received that stated the original 30-day comment period on the document did not provide enough time to gather information.

The FDA originally published the draft risk assessment Jan. 16 in the Federal Register, with the comment period closing Feb. 15.

“We announced that we had used the results of the draft (risk assessment) to propose to exempt … small or very small businesses that are engaged only in specific types of on-farm manufacturing, processing, packing, or holding activities identified in the draft (risk assessment) as low-risk activity/food combinations … from the proposed preventive controls rule,” the FDA release said.

People can submit electronic comments at http://www.regulations.gov or written comments to: Division of Dockets Management (HFA-305), Food and Drug Administration, 5630 Fishers Lane, Room 1061, Rockville, Md., 20852.

All comments must include the docket number FDA-2012-N-1258.

Comments (2) Leave a comment 

I wonder who wants to make more comments as there was 2 months of preparing and almost 4 months to sign in. There was so much press coverage that it was hard to not notice it anywhere on the globe. One full month of comment period should have been enough but if you avoided signing in to run under the radar and just found out that your container can not cross over the borders anymore with out your ID facility code, maybe you are the one that missed out of the comment period.

I hope the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation don't wipe out all insects while battling
mosquitoes and malaria, because according to the United Nations new research
findings eating bugs could 'fix food shortages'
.

The UN's food agency says eating insects could address food security problems .

If you're a meatlover, you should try chomping down on some delicious insects,
according the United Nations (UN).

In a bid to fix the world's food shortages, a UN report says insects are a valuable
source of protein and could be the answer to global food scarcities.

Scientists are urging Western societies to 'get over seeing insects as the enemy' and
to try eating these edible wrigglies, as more than 1,900 species are eaten around the
world.

Entomologist Alan Yen works with Victoria's Department of Primary Industries and
was involved in the research.

'Insects are an alternative and additional form of protein for people, and also as an
animal food,' he said.

'The main message is really: 'Eat insects',' Eva Mueller, director of forest economics
at the FAO, told a press conference in Rome on Monday.

'Two billion people - a third of the world's population - are already eating insects
because they are delicious and nutritious,' said Mueller.

The report suggested that the food industry in Western countries could help in
'raising the status of insects' by including them in recipes and putting them on
restaurant menus.

The report also said the insects most commonly consumed by humans are beetles
(31 per cent), caterpillars (18 per cent) and bees, wasps and ants (14 per cent),
followed by grasshoppers, locusts and crickets (13 per cent).