The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced this week it would extend its deadlines and inspection time frames for when certain-sized facilities should come into compliance with some Food Safety Modernization Act.
The move, applauded by the American Feed Industry Association, gives the FDA more time to release the final FSMA guidance documents and train its inspectors. AFIA says the deadline extensions give the regulated animal food industry “greater opportunity to perform the necessary retrofits to animal food safety plans and processes to ensure full compliance with federal regulations.”
Small-sized animal food facilities, firms with less than 500 employees will need to come into compliance with the hazard analysis and risk-based preventive controls regulations by September 17, with the FDA delaying inspections until the fall of 2019. Initially, inspections were set to begin in January 2019.
The FDA intends to delay compliance for very small businesses, those with sales totaling less than $2.5 million, from the requirements applicable to qualified facilities until the fall of 2020.
Source: National Association of Farm Broadcasting News Service.