Methodology for Creating an Information Tool for Animal Food Facilities

The U.S. Food Safety Modernization Act, administered by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), requires animal feed and pet food facilities to conduct a hazard analysis by identifying and evaluating potential hazards in animal food. This paper describes the creation of an information tool designed to help animal food facilities comply with this requirement. A thorough search of the scientific literature and FDA recall data identified the occurrence of hazards in animal food, assessed the severity of the hazards, and provided a scoring system useful for the identification and prioritization of specific animal food-hazard-species combinations.