Ensuring Pet Safety: The Impact of H5N1 on Cat and Dog Food Manufacturing
- M. DuBose
- Mar 26
- 2 min read
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently mandated that cat and dog food manufacturers must consider Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) virus, specifically H5N1, in their food safety plans.
This decision is part of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act Preventive Controls for Animal Food (PCAF) rule, which requires manufacturers using uncooked or unpasteurized materials derived from poultry or cattle to reanalyze their food safety plans to include H5N1 as a known or reasonably foreseeable hazard.
Impact on Cat and Dog Food Manufacturers
This new requirement will have significant implications for pet food manufacturers.
They will need to:
Reanalyze Food Safety Plans: Manufacturers must identify and evaluate the risks associated with H5N1 in their products. This involves assessing the severity of illness or injury to pets if the hazard were to occur and the probability of its occurrence without preventive controls.
Implement Preventive Controls: To mitigate the risk of H5N1, manufacturers may need to adopt additional processing steps such as pasteurization, cooking, or canning to inactivate the virus. They might also need to source ingredients from healthy herds and flocks.
Supply Chain Adjustments: Ensuring that ingredients used in pet food do not come from H5N1-infected animals will require stringent supply chain controls.
Effects on Consumers
For consumers, these changes mean:
Enhanced Safety: Pet owners can expect safer food products for their pets, reducing the risk of H5N1 transmission through contaminated food.
Potential Price Increases: The additional safety measures and supply chain adjustments may lead to increased production costs, which could be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices.
Increased Awareness: Consumers will need to be more vigilant about the sources of their pet food and may need to avoid raw or unpasteurized products to ensure their pets' safety.
Understanding H5N1 in Pet Foods
H5N1 is a subtype of the Influenza A virus, known for causing severe respiratory illness in birds and mammals. In pet foods, H5N1 can be transmitted to cats and dogs when they consume products from infected poultry or cattle that have not undergone a processing step capable of inactivating the virus.
Why H5N1 is Dangerous for Pets
H5N1 poses a significant threat to pets, particularly cats. Cats can experience severe illness or death from H5N1 infection, exhibiting symptoms such as loss of appetite, lethargy, fever, and severe respiratory issues. Dogs can also contract H5N1, although they usually exhibit milder symptoms and lower mortality compared to cats. The virus's ability to cause severe illness and death in pets underscores the importance of stringent safety measures in pet food production.
By addressing H5N1 in their food safety plans, pet food manufacturers will take crucial steps toward protecting pet health and preventing the spread of this dangerous virus.
Just a reminder of some of our up-and-coming in-person food safety workshops
Comments