Recap of ACS Meeting with FDA
May 8, 2017
ACS leaders met this week with FDA representatives at their CFSAN offices. The meeting was cordial and productive, and it served as another important step in continuing to advance industry dialogue with regulators in support of artisan, farmstead, and specialty cheese.
Look for additional insights in the May issue of our member newsletter, CheeseBytes.
Update on Listeriosis Outbreak Linked to Artisan Producer
In light of this outbreak, we strongly encourage members to:
New Study on Disease Outbreaks Related to Raw Milk and Cheese
FDA has advised ACS that a study to be published next month in
Emerging Infectious Diseases was not conducted by FDA or CDC. The study,
Outbreak-Related Disease Burden Associated with Consumption of Unpasteurized Cow's Milk and Cheese, United States, 2009-2014, has already been published online.
An
article based on the study was published this week in STAT News. FDA clarified that this article does not incorporate the most current data on raw milk cheese. While FDA did provide the author with data that differentiate between illegal and Hispanic-style raw milk cheeses, and legally made and aged raw milk cheeses, these data were not taken into consideration. ACS shares concerns that this study once again conflates fluid raw milk with raw milk cheese. ACS is drafting comments to the authors and will share these with members once submitted. Should you receive media inquiries about this study, you are welcome to direct them to ACS.
FDA Considers Cheese Risk Classification Based on Water Activity/pH
In discussing a November 2016 article published in The Journal of Dairy Science, Consensus categorization of cheese based on water activity and pH-A rational approach to systemizing cheese diversity, FDA indicated an openness to taking water activity and pH into consideration as a way to group cheese into risk-based categories. Given the broad range of cheeses that might fall into any one category, FDA recommended that a study be conducted with one cheese/category to determine whether this concept is provable. They also proposed that some categories would be so broad as to require being further broken out into subcategories. ACS will continue discussions with FDA around this approach to cheese risk classification.
FDA Food Safety Plan Builder
FDA shared a preview of its Food Safety Plan Builder to be launched this summer. Much like the existing Food Defense Plan Builder, this software-based tool will allow producers to enter facility- and process-specific information to generate key food safety plan documentation. It will also allow producers to upload their existing food safety planning documents. This software will be downloaded by the user, with associated data stored on a local computer or server, and will not be accessible to FDA.
Dr. William Jones to Present at 2017 ACS Conference
Dr. William Jones, Deputy Director, Office of Food Safety at FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, will share an update with members at
Cheese with Altitude, the 2017 ACS Conference in Denver. Dr. Jones will speak about current food safety issues impacting our industry, and an FDA representative will demonstrate FDA's new Food Safety Plan Builder. Don't miss this update:
register to attend the ACS Conference this summer!
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