The Food and Drug Administration is seeking comments on how to handle approval of animal food ingredients following last week’s announcement it will not be renewing a memorandum of understanding with the Association of American Feed Control Officials.
The agency released draft guidance Thursday that made it official: After Oct. 1, it “will no longer serve as the scientific and technical reviewer for ingredients undergoing the AAFCO ingredient definition request process.”
Once the MOU expires, FDA will use a new animal food ingredient consultation process, or AFIC, while also evaluating its animal food additive petition and generally recognized as safe, or GRAS, notification programs, “to help support firms developing animal food ingredients for which they may have otherwise utilized the AAFCO ingredient definition process,” the guidance says.
“AFIC could be used for ingredients such as those that make up a significant proportion of an animal’s diet, including plant materials, grains, or human food by-products,” the agency said on its website.
In another guidance document, it said it does not plan to “initiate enforcement action with respect to the food additive approval requirements” of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act for ingredients listed in AAFCO’s latest Official Publication, or OP.
For ingredients not listed in the 2024 AAFCO OP or approved as food additives or GRAS, and which FDA did not review as part of AAFCO’s process, “we are not aware of any safety concerns that would cause us to request that an ingredient be withdrawn from the AAFCO OP, and many have a long history of use in animal food,” it said in in its draft enforcement guidance for AAFCO-defined ingredients.
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After FDA and AAFCO announced the end of the MOU, which had been in place since 2007, the director of FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, Tracey Forfa, said in a “letter to stakeholders” that it would be asking for public input “on specific questions to help us determine what’s working, what’s not, and what changes may be needed. FDA has informally begun this process through public listening sessions and stakeholder meetings and believes now is the appropriate time to re-evaluate how FDA conducts its animal food pre-market programs.”
She said the FDA and AAFCO’s relationship “is not ending, but it will be evolving. FDA will continue to participate in AAFCO committees and meetings and work closely with AAFCO and states to help ensure the safety of the animal food supply.”
The American Feed Industry Association, which expressed concerns last week about “abolishing a system that has worked well for decades,” sent a message to members Thursday saying it has been “discussing the situation with the federal agency and AAFCO at AAFCO’s annual meeting this week and plans to develop industry comments on the proposed guidance documents and provide a broader review of FDA’s processes.”
AAFCO Executive Director Austin Therrell said last week that the “ingredient definition process has been a shining example of successful collaboration and partnership between states and the federal government. Although we are disappointed that the MOU is not being renewed, we are committed to being a conduit between the FDA and state regulatory programs, and to our work to provide standardization to the animal food industry.”
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