The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) International Union, together with Public Citizen Litigation Group, filed a federal lawsuit to stop the USDA’s new swine slaughter modernization rule that eliminates line speed limits in pork slaughter plants, and ultimately gives inspection responsibility to the slaughter plants instead of USDA inspectors.  As we have previously covered on this blog, in September, USDA published the final New Swine Slaughter Inspection System (NSIS), which established that hog…

Kraft Dodges Suit Over ‘No Preservatives’ Capri Sun Label (subscription to Law360 required) A proposed class action, filed in the Northern District of Illinois on October 25, 2018, against Kraft Heinz Food Co. accused the company of falsely advertising its Capri Sun juice as containing “no preservatives” when in fact it contains citric acid. Tarzian et al v. Kraft Heinz Food Company, Case No. 1:18-cv-07148. The complaint alleged that the representation that Capri Sun beverages…

On October 8, the American Herbal Products Association, the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, the Council for Responsible Nutrition, and the United Natural Products Alliance – a group of trade associations representing the dietary supplement and natural products industries, sent a letter to all 535 members of Congress urging them to pass legislation that would make cannabidiol (CBD) derived from hemp a legal dietary ingredient for use in dietary supplements.   The letter requests that Congress…

On October 7, 2019, the California Chamber of Commerce (“CalChamber”) filed suit in federal court against the California Attorney General, Xavier Becerra, to block the state from enforcing Proposition 65 warning requirements on foods containing acrylamide.  Acrylamide is a naturally occurring compound that develops when starches and sugars are cooked at high temperatures.  According to California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), it is present in foods including “French fries, potato chips, fried…

As our readers may know, in November 2018, California voters passed a ballot initiative known as Proposition 12, which establishes new standards for confinement of certain farm animals and bans the sale of products that do not comply with the new confinement standards. Specifically, Proposition 12 requires that all eggs sold in the state come from cage-free hens by 2022, and it also bans the sale of pork and veal in California from farm…

As our readers may know, the Food Safety Modernization Act’s (FSMA) Foreign Supplier Verification Program (FSVP) generally requires importers to conduct a range of activities to ensure that food from foreign suppliers is produced in compliance with applicable food safety provisions, including, but not limited to, HARPC requirements or produce safety standards. The first FSVP compliance date began May 30, 2017, however there are a range of compliance dates according to a number of…

  As discussed here, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been rolling out chapters, as they are completed, to provide guidance on complying with FDA’s Final Rule for Preventive Controls for Human Food.  These rules, found in 21 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) part 117, implement the hazard analysis and risk-based preventive control (HARPC) provisions for human food under the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).  Most human food facilities were required…