In January 2011, President Barack Obama signed off on the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). Over 4 years later, some of FSMA’s final rules are coming into effect.

This morning, two of FSMA’s final rules were in available as pre-publication pdfs on the Federal Register--one for preventive controls for human food, the other in relation to animal food. The final pdfs are scheduled to be available on September 17, 2015.

Preventive controls for human food rule:

• Good Manufacturing Practices are clarified and updated.
• Clarifies the definition of a “farm”, which now covers two different classes of farm operations. Operations that FSMA defines as a “farm” will not be subject to this preventive controls rule.
• Covered facilities are required to create and start using a food safety system, including thorough analysis of hazards and risk-based preventive controls.
• Additional flexibility in the supply chain program (separate compliance dates).

As for preventive controls for the animal food rule, they cover the same points as the rule for human food. The only difference is that the animal rule makes reference to feed mills that are vertically integrated into farm operations which will not be covered by this particular rule.