Beth Briczinski, Ph.D., Senior Science Advisor for Milk Safety at the FDA compares the milk safety program to a three-legged milking stool. The FDA, states, and the dairy industry work together. All the parties help update the ordinance. For products in interstate commerce, the states implement it, and industry must comply with the requirements. The FDA provides additional oversight and uniformity.
The ordinance, with a title that now includes the word pasteurized, applies to pasteurized milk from cows, goats, sheep and other hooved animals.
“We like to say the ordinance covers everything from the grass to the glass. It’s comprehensive,” Briczinski said.
To give you an idea of what that means, here’s some of what the ordinance covers:
- Design of the dairy farm milking areas to prevent contamination.
- Times and temperatures for heating, cooling, transporting and storing milk.
- Design of the milking, processing, and packaging equipment and how it should be controlled, and the testing of milk pasteurization equipment.
- Health and safety requirements for workers.
- Requirements for laboratory testing of raw milk and dairy products for quality and safety.
Updates made over the years reflect the latest science, new processing technologies and new products on the market. An example of the program’s forward thinking is its early adoption of traceability. Since 1963, all milk containers in the U.S. have been required to have a code indicating the state and dairy processing plant where the milk was packaged, so any problems can quickly be traced.
“It’s fair to say that millions of lives have been and continue to be protected because of what began in 1924,” Briczinski said.
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