This Week's Other Stories:

EDITORIAL COMMENT: Per Capita Cheese Consumption: 40 Pounds Is Within Reach

OTHER NEWS:
New US-Mexico-Canada Trade Pact Marks ‘Sea Change’ In GI Policy, CCFN Says

OTHER NEWS:
Trump Administration To Lift Restrictions On Ethanol; Decision Praised, Criticized

COMPANY PROFILE: New Management At Chalet Cheese Sees Opportunity For Swiss, Limburger, New Styles

GUEST COLUMNIST:
Modernizing Milk Starts With Truth In Labeling, by John Umhoefer

Don’t Forget Communications In Your Crisis Planning by Jen Pino-Gallagher

PREVIOUS COLUMNS:

As FSMA Takes Full Effect, Partnership Opportunities Abound To Improve Food Safety Practices by Larry Bell and Jim Mueller

Salient Dialogue by Dan Strongin

With Much At Stake, The Time For Trade Deals Is Now
by Rebekah Sweeney, WCMA

Iowa State Looks To Build Cheese, Ice Cream Plant For Training Students, Farm Entrepreneurs

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Dairy, Cheese Groups Ask FDA To Revise Standards Of Identity For Cheese, Yogurt

Dairy and cheese industry organizations this week asked the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make changes to its standards of identity for cheese and yogurt products.

The requests came in comments submitted to FDA in response to the agency’s recent request for input on its Nutrition Innovation Strategy. The comment deadline was Thursday. FDA was specifically seeking comments on, among other things, modernizing federal standards of identity, the use of a standard icon or symbol to denote the claim “healthy” on food labels, and making ingredient information more helpful to consumers.

That comment period is separate from an FDA request, made in late September, for comments on the labeling of plant-based products with names that include the names of dairy products. The deadline for submitting comments on that request is Nov. 27, 2018 (for more details, please see FDA Wants Comments On Labeling Of Plant-Based ‘Dairy’ Products, on page 1 of our Sept. 28th issue by scanning the QR Code on p. 2 of this issue).

The Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association (WCMA) said modernizing standards of identity offers the opportunity to include new types of milk to be noted in the definition of milk in CFR Title 21, Part 133, cheese and related cheese products.

Specifically, “ultrafiltered milk and microfiltered milk, produced from simple, mechanical filtration of milk, should be included in this definition,” the WCMA said. In August 2017, FDA took an “important step” in recognizing the importance of milk filtration, allowing cheese makers to use ultrafiltered milk as an ingredient in cheesemaking and noting the agency will use enforcement discretion on the ingredient labeling of this as milk or nonfat milk.

“Ultrafiltered milk has proven to be a safe and effective component of great cheese that is compositionally and nutrition

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