Beer Institute says FDA animal feed regulation could cost a brewery $13 million

Big Beer brands can sell their mash on the market, while the craft guys often just give it away because they don’t make enough, but that all could soon be changing.

Here’s your weekly dose of Monday morning feed talk, folks. Last Monday, we discussed the Brewers Association calling on Congress to reevaluate parts of the FDA’s proposed Food Safety Modernization Act. Back in October 2013, the Food and Drug Administration (the FDA) proposed a rule to establish best practices for manufacturing animal feed. Under these new definitions, craft breweries which kindly donate or even sell spent barely would be labeled as animal feed manufacturers and be regulated as such by the FDA.

Well, the Beer Institute has also been lobbying against the act, more than a year with members of Congress, regulators and allied organizations from dairy farmers to agriculture scientists in order to present a strong economic and scientific argument proving that it is completely unnecessary for the FDA to add additional regulation to brewers’ spent grain. The beer makers association (which represents the entire $246 billion beer industry) said in this recent press release that the result of this legislation would force brewers “to throw away this valuable feed, a cheaper option than complying with the costly proposed regulations, which the Beer Institute estimates may cost a single brewery more than $13 million in one-time and reoccurring costs.” It should be noted the association did not say what size brewery that would be (maybe more like the size of Coors instead of Caldera Brewing Co.).

On March 31, the Beer Institute filed joint comments with the American Malting Barley Association in order to protect the centuries-old and environmentally-conscious practice of brewers marketing their brewers’ grain to local animal producers. (View the AMBA’s comments.)

“This regulation is onerous and expensive, but really it’s just unnecessary,” said Chris Thorne, the Beer Institute vice president of communications, in the same press release. “There has never been a single reported negative incidence with spent grain. We have had very positive conversations with the FDA and other concerned stakeholders making us cautiously optimistic.”

These comments were filed in response to the FDA’s proposed rule on “Current Good Manufacturing Practice and Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls for Food for Animals” under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) [Docket No.: FDA-2011-N-0922] RIN: 0910-AG10.