Raw milk products pose a “significant food safety hazard” and facilities that make them should be covered by the new food safety bill, said the two largest US dairy trade bodies.

The International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) and the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) have urged lawmakers due to mark up the Food Safety Modernization Act later today to ensure plants producing unpasteurised products are no longer exempt from FDA scrutiny.

Regulatory exemptions

Such facilities do not have to comply with food safety plans, record keeping and access, and other regulations that are triggered by registration with FDA. Under the present rules, raw milk plants are also exempt from national regulations enforced at state level known as the Pasteurised Milk Ordinance (PMO), said the industry bodies.

In a letter to two senior members the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, the dairy groups called for a measure obliging all facilities producing raw or unpasteurised milk products for direct human consumption to “register with FDA and adhere to the tried-and-true food safety requirements that are followed by all other facilities producing milk products”.