The Canadian Food Inspection Agency plans to rework the approval process for livestock feed ingredients to get approved new products to market faster.
The agency’s proposed changes to the federal Feeds Regulations would allow for the “immediate” manufacture or import and sale of a new feed ingredient, either as a feed by itself or in mixed feeds, once a CFIA evaluation and approval is complete.
Currently, feeds can’t be made, imported or sold in Canada until they’re listed in the Feeds Regulations’ Schedule IV (energy ingredients, protein ingredients, minerals, vitamins) or Schedule V (feed flavouring agents).
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But that can lead to a “potentially significant delay” between when a new ingredient is assessed and approved at CFIA and when a regulatory amendment is passed and takes formal effect, the agency said in a statement Friday.
The change in the Feeds Regulations would allow for periodic revisions to Schedules IV and V to formalize the listed ingredients approved and previous listings changed since the last update — but would allow the ingredients to be made or imported and marketed in the meantime.
The proposal “seeks to make new ingredients available in the marketplace in the most timely fashion possible” but will not have an impact on how CFIA’s feed ingredient assessments are performed, the agency stressed in its statement.
The proposed amendments, which CFIA is preparing to pre-publish soon in the Canada Gazette, also would not mean any change in the fee for an application for a new ingredient registration. Nor would it change the requirements for supporting information to be submitted to show the safety and efficacy of a new ingredient, CFIA said.
