Recently, I have been reading through Neal Fortin’s book titled “Food Regulation: Law, Science, Policy & Practice”. Fortin has a helpful chart illustrating the federal government agencies that regulate food. The federal agencies and responsibilities are as follows:
Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”): drinking water, pesticide residues
Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”): food (excluding meat and poultry), drugs (including both over the counter and prescriptions), dietary supplements, cosmetics, medical devices, bottled water, seafood, wild game/ exotic meat, and eggs in a shell
Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”): advertising
Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (“TTB”): alcohol
U.S. Department of Agriculture: raw vegetables/fruits, meats, poultry, eggs (processing and grading)
Which food products are you involved with? For those of you that are interested in learning more about the exciting world of food law, I highly recommend checking out this book.
I get a lot of inquiries from law students and attorneys who are interested in building a food and agriculture law practice. I have a conference call via Skype on the first Friday of every month from 2-3pm ET to talk about these issues. I do, however, recommend reading this book – it’s been an excellent resource for a research project that I’m doing for a client. Additionally, I’ll be moderating at CLE on May 30th for the ABA GP Solo Agriculture Law Committee on Food Labeling – save the date!