National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard; Validation of Refining Processes

The American Frozen Food Institute (AFFI) appreciates the opportunity to provide feedback to AMS on the agencys proposed National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard Instruction to Ensure Acceptable Validation of Refining Processes (hereinafter Draft Instruction). As the voice of the U.S. frozen food industry, AFFI is the national trade association that represents the interests of all segments of the frozen food industry. AFFI members manufacture and distribute frozen foods throughout the United States and globally. AFFI represents a broad group of companies throughout the food distribution chain, including food producers, distributors, and retailers. AFFI and its members supported the establishment of the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard (NBFDS) to facilitate a national, uniform approach for the disclosure of bioengineered foods. Throughout our comments submitted on the NBFDS, we emphasized the importance that AMS establish a final regulation and guidance that promotes transparency and avoids unnecessary burdens. AFFI cautioned against a final regulation that would require rDNA to be detectable because we felt such a rule would not promote transparency and could introduce complexities and unnecessary burdens and costs in determining whether a particular food ingredient contains detectable levels of rDNA and is subject to treatment as a BE food. Now that AMS has determined that detectable rDNA is required for a food to be considered BE, we urge AMS to provide instructions that will minimize the burden and costs associated with determining whether this standard is met. The Draft Instruction does not accomplish either of these objectives and has the potential to introduce further confusion by resulting in disparate outcomes for ingredients made by nearly identical processes, with the potential for some being considered BE and others being considered outside the BE definition. We discuss these and other concerns in the attached comments.