Will the FDA uphold the sanitary transportation of pet food?

That depends.

Don’t hold your breath though, because like most of the new proposed Food Safety Modernization Act rules relating to pet food and animal feed, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is holding pet food to a lesser standard than human food.

But you probably want to know why such a rule is important and why the FDA has written a new proposed regulation for the sanitary transportation of human and animal food.

Glad you asked. Because time and time again we find that sellers of raw product will ship it in open unrefrigerated trucks, we hear of consumers who have gravel in pet food, and read of accidents involving trucks hauling guts that spill their rotting greasy loads on highways and we wonder is it the Wild West when it comes to shipping inedible material?

The FDA is concerned about the potential for human food to become contaminated during transportation and cites such examples as failure to properly refrigerate food, inadequate cleaning of vehicles between loads, and failure to properly protect food during transportation – funny, some of the very same problems in pet food and animal feed.

Will the new transportation law apply to pet food or animal food? Hard to say, but the FDA says they will – maybe:

Yes. However, FDA is expressly authorized to modify the preventive controls requirements for facilities that are solely engaged in the production of animal foods or to exempt those facilities entirely from the preventive controls requirements. FDA would need to promulgate a regulation to accomplish such a modification or exemption.

With such an oblique, vague answer, it doesn’t do much to inspire confidence that they will.

You tell me, what does their answer sound like to you?

Read more about it here: Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) FAQ’s and here: Proposed Rule on Sanitary Transportation of Human and Animal Food