The American Feed Industry Association (AFIA) announced a change to several of AFIA's third-party certification programs. Starting in October, the administration of the Safe Feed/Safe Food Certification Program, Pet Food Manufacturing Facility Certification Program and Pet Food Ingredient Facility Certification Program will be handled by the Safe Quality Food Institute (SQFI).

AFIA and SQFI signed a joint program implementation and marketing agreement to bring these three AFIA third-party certification programs into the SQFI family of programs. The agreement will bring a number of benefits to program participants, including open access for the choice of multiple, approved certification bodies for an audit; exceeding independent credibility criteria required by consumers and regulators globally; use of SQFI's certification program to help reduce multi-program inconsistencies and associated costs of multiple audits; and making AFIA programs the "feed segment" of the total food chain.