Weekly Newsletter | August 25, 2023 |
Publishing Note: This weekly newsletter will not be published from Aug. 28 through Sept. 4. We will resume publication on Thursday, Sept. 7. |
Food & Nutrition
FDA Announces First Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods Program
FDA announced that Jim Jones will serve as the first Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods. In this position Jim Jones will lead and move forward priorities for a proposed unified Human Foods Program. Jones previously served as President of J. Jones Environmental and has 30 years of experience working in chemical safety, holding various management positions at the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as serving as Executive Vice President of Strategic Alliances and Industry Relations at the Household and Commercial Products Association. Notably, Jones was an integral member of the Reagan-Udall Foundation’s Independent Expert Panel for Foods, which submitted a report on the operational evaluation of the FDA’s Human Foods Program to the agency in December 2022. Jones is scheduled to begin at the FDA on September 24.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) hosted a workshop on dietary patterns to prevent and manage diet-related diseases. During the workshop, speakers discussed methods to assess diet quality, modifiable influencers on dietary patterns, the global economic cost of dietary patterns, and insights from industry about what dietary messaging resonates with consumers. Click here to watch the meeting recording.
Mexico Refuses to Modify Decree on Genetically Modified Corn Bans
In the latest development as part of an escalating trade agreement between the U.S. and Mexico, the U.S. government formally asked for the creation of a dispute panel under the North American Trade Pack in an attempt to resolve the disagreement between the two countries surrounding Mexico's restrictions on genetically modified U.S. corn imports. The U.S. claims that Mexico's decree banning imports of genetically modified corn used in dough and tortillas for human consumption is not based on science and violates its commitments under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade launched in 2020. Experts are carefully monitoring the progress and indicate this could have possible outcomes for the broader trade relationship between the U.S. and Mexico.
|
IFSAC Releases 2024-2028 Priorities
The Interagency Food Safety Analytics Collaboration (IFSAC) — a collaboration between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the FDA, and USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) — has published its upcoming priorities for calendar years 2024 - 2028. The four priorities that will guide its work over the next four years include 1) improving foodborne illness source attribution estimates for Campylobacter, 2) developing foodborne illness source attribution estimates for non-O157 Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC), 3) finalizing existing analyses; and 4) refining foodborne illness source attribution estimates using data from non-foodborne sources of pathogens.
|
Agriculture
Legislators Introduce the EATS Act in House and Senate
Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) and Congresswoman Ashley Hinson (R-IA) jointly introduced the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression (EATS) Act in both the House and the Senate. This legislation would reduce the authority of state laws that could impact agricultural provisions in other states. This week, 171 legislators sent a letter Chair of the Agriculture Committee, GT Thompson (R-PA), urging him to exclude the EATS Act from the 2023 Farm Bill discussions.
USDA Publishes Final Rule on Program Integrity
USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service published a final rule on program integrity to ensure that child nutrition programs are properly operated and managed. The final rule impacts the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, Special Milk Program, Summer Food Service Program, and Child and Adult Care Food Program. This final rule strengthens program integrity by modernizing how state agencies oversee child nutrition programs including, introducing targeted flexibilities in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs that streamline monitoring requirements and lowering the administrative burden for states.
|
Global
U.S. Announces Preliminary Tariffs on Foreign Tin
The U.S. Department of Commerce announced it plans to impose preliminary anti-dumping duties on food-can metal imported from China, Germany, and Canada. While only a preliminary determination, the Department of Commerce is scheduled to announce a final determination in 2024. China is projected to face a tariff of 122.52% of a product's import value, suggested to be motivated by the U.S. and China's economic tensions. These duties could lead to higher costs for certain canned food items.
Fun Fact:
The practice of pairing wine and food is known as "sommelier."
|
|
