ROCKVILLE, MD — The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) hosted a stakeholder call with the animal food industry on Mar. 31 to discuss animal food safety and food supply questions related to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).

Steven Solomon, DVM, MPH, director of the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM), opened the call by emphasizing that there is no shortage of animal food including pet food or related ingredients at this time. He said the FDA is coordinating closely across government agencies and with the industry to monitor potential animal food or ingredient supply chain shortages should they emerge.

Joining Solomon on the call, Tim Schell, Ph.D., director of the CVM office of surveillance and compliance, said the FDA is committed to ensuring that the food supply is safe, and that the food supply chain is not disrupted. He explained that animal food production and manufacturing are widely dispersed throughout the United States and there are currently no wide-spread disruptions reported in the supply chain.

“I know that there have been reports of empty pet food aisles or delays ordering from home-based delivery services. Based on our ongoing communication with both the human food and animal food industries, we understand this is largely an issue of unprecedented demand, not a lack of capacity to produce and process," Schnell said.

“I know that there have been reports of empty pet food aisles or delays ordering from home-based delivery services,” Schell said. “Based on our ongoing communication with both the human food and animal food industries, we understand this is largely an issue of unprecedented demand, not a lack of capacity to produce and process.”

He asked that industry continue to reassure and remind American consumers including pet owners and farmers that there is no need to hoard animal food, particularly pet food.

In addressing the safety of the animal food supply in the United States, Schell said there is no evidence of food or food packaging being associated with transmission of COVID-19 either to humans or animals.

“Because of the way that the virus spreads primarily from person to person and then potentially from contaminated surfaces, we do not anticipate that animal food products would need to be recalled or be withdrawn from the market should a person who works in an animal food facility be contaminated or be confirmed to be positive for COVID-19,” Schell said.

Jenny Murphy, deputy director for foods at the CVM office of surveillance and compliance, provided an overview of the FDA’s efforts to ensure animal food production continues and shared recommendations and resources available to the animal food industry.

The FDA has been working with the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to ensure animal food, as part of the food and agriculture sector, is well-represented on the DHS Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce list.

“DHS is updating this list on an as-needed basis and FDA was able to work with DHS to get updates to the list to address the concerns we had received,” Murphy said. “A new version of this list was released on March 28 with some additional edits to the food and agriculture section. We believe the current list under the food and agriculture section is wide enough to address all the various animal food industry sectors including livestock food, pet food, renderers, ingredient manufacturers, food packaging, transportation and retail facilities such as pet food stores and feed and grain stores.”

Murphy reminded industry that the DHS list in its entirety is not meant to be binding for state and local governments. It is meant to serve as a tool for them to build their own list.

Safety of the workforce

While the normal conversations between FDA and the animal food industry focus on animal food safety, the FDA provided a few comments on workforce safety.

Murphy said an area of concern employers have brought to the FDA’s attention is what type of documentation workers should provide to show they are essential critical infrastructure workers especially as more states and localities have put in shelter-in-place orders.

“That decision is a decision for an individual state, but we have heard that many employers are providing their own letters of documentation to their employees and attaching the state or local government listing of essential critical infrastructure workers,” Murphy said. “If you have questions or concerns within your state, you should work directly with your state government. If you are unsure of how to reach your state government, we recommend that you use the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) directory for state feed control officials.”

During the call, FDA officials encouraged animal food facilities to take steps to ensure the safety of their workforce including cleaning facilities or equipment to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and following current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) requirements for food safety to maintain clean food contact surfaces that workers may come in contact with. Facilities should be using Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) registered sanitizer products in their cleaning and sanitizing practices. According to Murphy, the EPA has a list of EPA-registered disinfectant products for use against SARS-CoV-2, which is a coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

Animal food production and processing facilities and retail food establishments such as pet food stores and feed and grain stores should conduct an evaluation to identify and implement operational changes that increase employee separation.

When it’s impractical for employees in these settings to maintain social distancing, workers should maintain effective hygiene practices to reduce the chance of spreading the virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) regularly updates its interim guidance for businesses and employers to plan and respond to coronavirus, which includes updates to cleaning and disinfecting guidance and best practices for conducting social distancing.

The Occupational Safety and Health Association (OSHA) has issued a guidance for preparing work places for COVID-19 that includes information on how a COVID-19 outbreak could affect workplaces and steps employers can take to reduce workers’ exposure for that risk. Animal food facilities should follow cleaning protocols set by local and state health departments, which may vary depending on the amount and spread of COVID-19 in a given area.

“Because there is currently no evidence of food or food packaging being associated with transmission of COVID-19, we do not believe there is a need to conduct environmental testing in a food facility setting for the virus that causes COVID-19 for the purposes of animal food safety," Murphy said.

“Recently, FDA received questions on the need to conduct environment testing if a worker has tested positive in a food facility,” Murphy said. “Because there is currently no evidence of food or food packaging being associated with transmission of COVID-19, we do not believe there is a need to conduct environmental testing in a food facility setting for the virus that causes COVID-19 for the purposes of animal food safety. Cleaning and sanitizing surfaces such as with more frequent cleaning and sanitation schedule is a better use of resources than testing to see if the virus is present.”

Current plan for FDA inspections

Michael Rogers, assistant commissioner for human and animal food operations for the FDA office of regulatory affairs, addressed what the industry should expect to see for the foreseeable future related to the agency’s current approach for inspections in the domestic and foreign arena. Presently, the FDA has postponed all domestic and foreign routine surveillance inspections of firms that manufacture human and animal foods and farms.

The FDA is only focusing on those inspections that are considered as mission critical when there is a potential threat to public health — both human or animal — providing those inspections can be accomplished in a safe manor for FDA staff, their families and industry. Rogers said the FDA plans to revisit this approach on a periodic basis, but the agency does not plan to proceed with routine surveillance inspections until this crisis has passed.

“We are also aware that many firms are taking into account the local and state measures to reduce the community spread of COVID-19 and our approach for domestic inspections should help reduce the burden on industry during this time as well,” Rogers said. “We have received some comments from industry regarding if this is the approach that the states are taking for the inspections that they conduct, and I can say that this is the approach that the states are following for the inspections that the states conduct for FDA under contract and partnerships. We also recognize that the states conduct many inspections outside of this process and some are solely under the state’s jurisdiction. We would, however, expect that the states would be using the same mission-critical criteria to conduct this work, as well as taking into account the measures within their state to reduce the spread of COVID-19.”

The FDA will initiate Enhanced Remote Official Establishment Inventory assignments that will involve contacting registered firms remotely for the purpose of validating the information on file about firms and assessing each firm’s current operating status.

“FDA will be doing all that we can and we know that industry will as well to accomplish our shared goal of ensuring that the animal food supply is safe… and will continue to be with all of our combined efforts,” Rogers said.

An additional change Rogers shared is the FDA plans to pre-announce all mission critical domestic inspections.

Rogers emphasized that the regulatory agencies and industry are facing the COVID-19 challenges together and the safety of the animal food supply is a shared responsibility.

“FDA will be doing all that we can and we know that industry will as well to accomplish our shared goal of ensuring that the animal food supply is safe… and will continue to be with all of our combined efforts,” Rogers said.

Some business as usual

In closing the call, Solomon acknowledged that the FDA, including its CVM, is devoting significant resources to COVID-19 response, but it is still operating and continuing several of its normal business functions.

“Our complaint and emergency response team and our division of compliance is ready to respond to any animal feed outbreak or illness issue,” Solomon said. “CVM is also monitoring and taking action against fraudulent products being marketed to be affective against or to treat or to prevent COVID-19 in both humans and animals. FDA is part of a whole government response. Overall leadership of government coordination is now at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).”

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