A recent Food Safety News article captures reaction to the three public meetings held by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in late November and early December in College Park, Maryland, USA; Chicago, Illinois, USA; and Sacramento, California, USA, to discuss the animal food preventive controls rule under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).

The first meeting in College Park was attended mostly by organizations already familiar with FSMA, incuding the American Feed Industry Association (AFIA), the International Warehouse Logistics Association and the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).

According to Dan McChesney, director of FDA's Office of Surveillance and Compliance, the two subsequent meetings were attended more by those responsible for putting the rule into operation than industry associations.

"The interesting thing is, as we've gotten closer to where the people are making the products, you'll see a change in the questions," McChesney said. "[They] go from the bigger picture down to 'here's to what I do in my facility, what am I going to have to do?'"

In the article, McChesney pointed to three themes from all of the public meetings: time for implementation, company-specific situations, and the relationship between human and animal food.

Ultimately, the people showing up for the meetings are "just trying to understand how to comply and what they need to do," McChesney said.

Read the full Food Safety News article online.