Now available is the 120 Day Food and Agriculture Interim Risk Review, which provides a review of critical and emergent risks to the U.S. food and agriculture sector, and will help inform the Federal Risk Mitigation Strategy, as outlined in the National Security Memorandum-16 (NSM-16).
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA’s APHIS) has announced 12 awards totaling more than $3.2 million in cooperative agreement funding to create antimicrobial resistance (AMR) dashboards. AMR is a crucial threat to food safety and global public health that is aggravated by the use of antimicrobials in food animal agriculture.
The Dutch government has partnered with the cultivated meat industry to develop a code of practice for the facilitation of taste tests for cell-cultured meat and seafood products prior to receiving market approval.
Following a May 2023 announcement of a new framework for systematic post-market reassessment for chemicals used in foods, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has released a public inventory of certain food ingredients and additives determined to have unsafe uses in food because they are unapproved, as well as lists of select chemicals currently under the agency’s review. FDA also shared insights about the agency’s work to enhance the assessment of ingredients in foods on the market.
A nationwide study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has revealed that nearly half of all U.S. drinking water is contaminated by per- and polyflouralkyl substances (PFAS), also known as “forever chemicals.” Dietary exposure to PFAS is an issue of increasing concern due to the growing body of evidence regarding the chemicals’ harm to human health.
The California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement (LGMA) has announced its Romaine Test and Learn initiative, a two-year food safety study commencing in October 2023, which will leverage LGMA members’ individual testing data to elicit meaningful, aggregated information to better understand potential microbial risks to leafy greens food safety.
The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) hopes to secure further legal powers for the National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) in England and Wales, which will enable the agency to more effectively investigate food crime with autonomy by granting powers of entry and search. A public consultation is now available.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA’s FSIS) has updated its sampling program for cell-cultured meat and poultry products, providing new instructions to inspection personnel and enforcement officers.
In 2022, two-thirds of business in England and nine of ten businesses in Northern Ireland and Wales had their food hygiene ratings on visible display, according to an audit by the UK Food Safety Authority (FSA).
McMaster University researchers have created a new packaging tray that can signal when Salmonella or other foodborne pathogens are present in raw or cooked foods, such as chicken.
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