The International Dairy Foods Association and Chestnut Labs will offer a hands-on laboratory training program designed specifically for all dairy industry personnel with food safety responsibilities.

FDA today issued Federal Register notices to extend the comment periods on the proposed rules for Current Good Manufacturing Practice and Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls for Human Food and Standards for the Growing, Harvesting, Packing, and Holding of Produce for Human Consumption 60 days until November 15, 2013. This is the second and final extension of the comment period for these two rules. The extension of the comment period also applies to the information collection provisions associated with the proposed rules.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has revamped its online food defense courses to help bolster the food industry’s defense measures against an act of intentional food contamination. The revamped courses, titled “Food Defense 101,” have been updated to address the types of intentional contamination that have occurred in the United States in recent years and the FDA’s most current thinking on how to forestall or minimize the impact of such incidents