The American Feed Industry Association (AFIA), the National Grain and Feed Association (NGFA), the National Renderers Association (NRA), and the Pet Food Institute (PFI) on March 4 submitted an official request to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to extend the comment period for its proposed rule on Current Good Manufacturing Practice and Risk-Based Preventive Controls for Food for Animals to give animal feed, pet food, and feed ingredient companies more time to review and develop comments on this major proposed regulation.

The request seeks an additional 90 days to prepare comments on the issues raised by the proposed rule. The groups wish to extend the comment period to June 30.

"We have been working diligently to analyze the proposed rule and prepare meaningful comments that address all of the issues raised for all segments of the feed industry, but we need additional time to complete this massive undertaking. At the same time, we are working to analyze and respond to other FDA proposed rules and initiatives such as the proposed rule on sanitary transportation of food and the draft approach to designation of high-risk foods," the groups wrote in the request.