This regular publication by DLA Piper lawyers focuses on helping clients navigate the ever-changing business, legal, and regulatory landscape.
FDA expands list of chemicals currently under agency review. The FDA has announced that it has updated its list of chemicals that fall under FDA review. Newly added to the list are azodicarbonamide (ADA); Blue dye 1, Blue dye 2, butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA); Green dye 3; Red dye 40; Yellow dye 5, and Yellow dye 6. In addition, the agency has also created a new category for lead as a contaminant in a food contact substance, splitting that from the category of lead as a contaminant and giving it a separate entry on the updated list. Further, FDA is reviewing the presence of opiate alkaloids on poppy seeds. The updates are in keeping with the agency’s ongoing work to, it states, “provide more insight on the status of the FDA’s post-market assessments of chemicals in the food supply.” Find the updated list on this page.
FDA intends to issue proposed rule to remove self-GRAS determinations. The 2025 Spring Unified Agenda was released on September 4, introducing several new entries, including a proposed rule that would require mandatory submission of generally recognized as safe (GRAS) notices for all human and animal food substances claimed as GRAS, including both direct and indirect additives. Exemptions would apply to substances already listed or affirmed as GRAS by regulation, or those with an existing FDA “no questions” letter. The proposed rule would clarify that FDA will maintain a public inventory of all substances requiring mandatory GRAS notification, organized by their intended uses. It would also outline the procedures the FDA will follow to determine when a substance does not qualify as GRAS. See here for a full list of what is on the Spring Unified Agenda.
Jim O’Neill named acting CDC director. On August 29, Jim O’Neill, the current HHS Deputy Secretary, was named acting director of the CDC. O’Neill, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., stated, has “extensive experience in Silicon Valley and government.” O’Neill has no experience in medicine or infectious disease science. On August 27, the CDC announced the firing of Dr. Susan Monarez, who had served less than a month as CDC director, after she reportedly refused to support the revocation of certain COVID vaccine approvals. Soon after her termination, several top CDC officials resigned. Since January, more than 2,000 CDC staffers have been terminated.
Ontario halves alcohol taxes to support local brewers and distillers. Effective August 1, 2025, Ontario introduced its largest alcohol tax cut in decades, reducing provincial taxes on spirits, ciders, and ready-to-drink beverages and slashing LCBO markups by about 50 percent for craft brewers, cideries, and distilleries. The Ministry of Finance touts this as the largest alcohol industry tax reduction in decades, aimed at helping domestic businesses stay competitive amid tariff and inflation pressures by expanding consumer access to locally made products. To support the changes, Ontario is allocating $100 million in funding for the industry in 2025-2026, and $155 million in 2026-2027.
US Dietary guidelines may be released this month. The 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans will be released in September, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. recently announced on X. The guidelines, legally mandated to be updated every five years, are jointly issued by the USDA and HHS and are intended for use by health professionals to guide their patients and by governments as a policy document – they help to shape more than $40 billion in federal spending annually. The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) sent its recommendations for the 2025–2030 guidelines to the White House in December 2024. Kennedy has called those recommendations “bloated” and “incomprehensible,” stating, “We are going to release dietary guidelines that are 4, 5, or 6 pages long that are understandable, that are simple and will allow people to make good choices about their food.” It remains unclear who is working to revise the DGAC recommendations – DGAC disbanded once those recommendations were submitted. In early August, abstracts arising from work done by DGAC were retracted by USDA from the annual conference of the American Society for Nutrition, and the government employees who were the lead authors were notified that due to “current travel policies,” they were “not able to attend the conference,” Medpage Today reported.
CDC trims FoodNet pathogen surveillance. Pointing to inadequate funding, the CDC has quietly made deep cuts to the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) pathogen surveillance program, NBC News reported on August 26. NBC News found that, since July 1, FoodNet has been watching out for only two foodborne pathogens – Salmonella and Shiga toxin-producing E. coli – ending its monitoring of six others, Campylobacter, Cyclospora, Listeria monocytogenes, Shigella, Vibrio, and Yersinia. FoodNet, a collaboration involving the FDA, CDC, USDA, and the health departments of ten states, is the sole US federal initiative that actively looks for dangerous foodborne pathogens – all other federal programs conduct passive surveillance, in which the states provide notification of cases they’ve already encountered. Its website describes it as “the principal foodborne disease component of CDC’s Emerging Infections Program.” CDC reportedly told the Connecticut Public Health Department, in a list of talking points about the cutbacks, “Funding has not kept pace with the resources required to maintain the continuation of FoodNet surveillance for all eight pathogens.” It has also informed the collaborating state health departments that they are no longer required to surveil for the six pathogens but may do so if they so choose. FoodNet’s collaborative network includes Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee, and sections of California and New York – covering, in total, about 54 million Americans. At this writing, the FoodNet web page has not been updated to reflect the surveillance cuts.
Farm Credit Canada extends Trade Disruption Customer Support program to canola producers. On August 19, Farm Credit Canada announced the extension of the $1 billion program to canola producers in response to ongoing global trade uncertainty, including Chinese anti-dumping duties on Canadian canola. Under the program, eligible producers can defer principal payments on existing loans for up to 12 months, access up to $500,000 in additional credit, and receive enhanced support through term loans.
FSIS will oversee reopening of Boar’s Head plant. When Boar’s Head reopens its Jarrettsville, Virginia plant later this year, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) will directly monitor its operations for at least 90 days. The plant is regarded as the source of a 2024 listeria outbreak that led to at least 57 hospitalizations and nine deaths in 18 states. As we reported last year, the plant was indefinitely closed in September 2024; more than 7 million pounds of deli products were recalled, and the company decided to permanently stop producing its liverwurst, which investigators said was implicated in the listeria contamination. The direct federal oversight, including heightened monitoring and inspections, is unusual. In such circumstances, state health agencies ordinarily contract with USDA to conduct oversight on behalf of FSIS. See some of our earlier coverage of this story here.
Kennedy praises three MAHA-inspired Texas bills. Speaking at a ceremonial signing event in Austin on August 27, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kenndey, Jr. praised the Texas legislature for its passage of three bills inspired by the Make American Health Against (MAHA) movement. Governor Greg Abbott stated during the ceremony, “Taxpayer dollars will no longer be used to fund chronic health problems in our state.” The three measures are:
- SB 25, which puts in place broad nutrition and fitness education requirements for public schools and requires warning labels on food products containing any of 44 listed food additives that Texas regards as harmful
- SB 314, which prohibits schools that participate in national school lunch and breakfast programs from providing foods that contain certain additives, and
- SB 379, which prohibits recipients of Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program benefits from purchasing candy and sweetened beverages with SNAP benefits.
Cultivated meat companies bring constitutional challenge to Texas SB 261. A lawsuit brought by two cultivated meat companies on September 2 is challenging a Texas law that prohibits the offering for sale of cell-cultured proteins for human consumption. In their complaint, Upside Foods, which produces cell-cultivated chicken, and Wildtype, which produces cultivated salmon, state that SB 261 was put in place “to protect Texas agriculture from lawful competition” and is an unconstitutional violation of the Dormant Commerce Clause and the Supremacy Clause as well as certain federal laws. As we’ve previously reported, both Upside Foods and Wildtype have completed the FDA’s pre-market safety consultation process; because it sells a chicken product, Upside also received approval from the USDA in 2023 under the federal Poultry Products Inspection Act. The plaintiffs are asking the US District Court for the Western District of Texas to declare that SB 261is unconstitutional and to prohibit its enforcement. Meanwhile, a lawsuit brought by Upside Foods and the Institute for Justice over Florida’s ban on cultivated meat continues to move forward.
Kennedy calls on medical schools to reform nutrition education “to put nutrition at its core.” In an August 27 editorial in the Wall Street Journal, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. decried what he called the medical profession’s reluctance to address the chronic-disease epidemic through formal nutrition education. Kennedy stated, “With the support of Education Secretary Linda McMahon, I am calling on medical schools, residency programs, licensing boards, and assessment and accrediting bodies to overhaul their standards. They must embed rigorous, measurable nutrition education at every stage of medical training.” He called for “robust and meaningful nutrition competency requirements across the entire medical training continuum,” ranging from premed training to new accreditation standards and specialty-specific nutrition requirements across all residency programs.
The price of food. Data from the USDA’s Economic Research Service indicate that food prices in the US moderately increased in July – 2.9 percent higher than in July 2024 and a modest .2 percent higher than in June 2025. The most significant rise was the price of beef, which jumped 2.5 percent from June to July – the seventh month in a row in which beef prices have climbed. Beef and veal prices are now 11.3 percent higher than they were in July 2024. While USDA is forecasting that food prices will rise 2.9 percent overall this year, the department is also predicting slightly lower costs for fresh vegetables {0.8 percent over 2025 as a whole}, but higher costs for certain foods: a rise of 9.9 percent for beef; 24.4 percent for eggs; and 4.7 percent for sweets and sugars.
New York City updates nutritional standards for foods served by city agencies. The New York City Health Department and the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy have updated the nutritional standards that affect foods served in the city’s public schools and hospitals, as well as foods provided by city agencies – for instance, through senior citizen programs. Among the changes: a stronger requirement to serve whole or minimally processed plant protein-based foods; expansion of the restriction on artificial sweeteners to cover foods served to all ages; strengthening of rules about snacks to enhance their variety and nutritional quality; new restrictions on all artificial colors and certain other additives; and elimination of all processed meats. The latter change is receiving the most attention: the New York Times headline about the changes, for instance, stated that they “Could Spell Doom for Chicken Nuggets.” The updates go into effect July 1, 2026. See New York City Food Standards: Meals Purchased and Served.
Avian flu update.
- The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has announced updates to its highly pathogenic avian influenza surveillance guidelines for poultry flocks being sent to slaughter. Put into effect on August 26, the guidelines include recommendations of a 72-hour pre-movement isolation period before birds are loaded for slaughter, especially in affected states located outside of active avian influenza control areas. APHIS also recommends polymerase chain reaction testing closer to the time of shipment in these areas, especially if there are signs of higher-than-usual levels of mortality or illness without a known non-disease cause. You may also be interested in the APHIS Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Emergency Response page.
- No new H5N1 cases have been reported in US dairy herds in the 30-day period up to September 2. Only one avian outbreak has been reported in the US in that time frame, in a commercial poultry operation in South Dakota.
- The virus, however, has been rampaging across the United Kingdom all summer – most recently in Devon and Somerset, where at this writing, flocks at two farms are being culled. In January, UK Chief Veterinary Officer Christine Middlemiss issued an Avian Influenza Prevention Zone affecting all of England, Scotland, and Wales, mandating anyone housing birds, whether commercial or domestic, to carry out enhanced biosecurity actions. The Animal and Plant Health Agency advises that all poultry gatherings remain banned.
- As previously reported, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) ordered the flock culled by February 1, 2025, after 69 birds died of H5N1 in late 2024. On August 21, the Federal Court of Appeal upheld the CFIA’s order, confirming the agency’s authority to destroy the flock. While no timeline has been released, the CFIA stated in a news release that “specific operational plans and dates will not be shared with the public in advance.” The farm’s owners have said they intend to seek a stay pending an application to the Supreme Court of Canada for leave to appeal. On August 25, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Administrator of the US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, urged the Canadian government to spare the 400 ostriches remaining at Universal Ostrich Farms in British Columbia. Speaking on The Cats Roundtable – a talk show hosted by American businessman John Catsimatidis, who is reportedly bankrolling the legal action – Oz said on August 25 that he would like the flock transferred to the United States, noting that he previously offered to house the birds on his Florida ranch. Following the court ruling, the farm’s owners called on supporters to camp on the property, urging them, “Bring your cameras. Bring your hearts. Bring your voices.” The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation recently interviewed Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan, who stated that the cull was the appropriate response and would be the “best way” to reduce the risk of H5N1 transmission to humans and other animals. She also said that Canada is party to international agreements requiring it to take these steps and prohibiting the transport of animals known to be infected with H5N1.
- China has banned imports of poultry and related products from Spain in the wake of outbreaks of H5N1 in commercial flocks. The Spanish agricultural ministry said this ban would have no impact on Spanish farmers because such imports have not yet begun – the two countries signed a protocol covering exports of certain poultry products to China earlier this year, but applications from companies seeking to enter the Chinese market are still under review.
- Multiple countries are also implementing restrictions and biosecurity measures against H5N1 – for instance, Chile has suspended poultry imports from Argentina, and China is maintaining barriers against New Zealand pet food exports. Many countries have reversed their suspension of chicken imports from Brazil, but Canada, China, East Timor, the European Union, Malaysia, and Pakistan are still maintaining the ban on all Brazilian poultry products. Other countries are still banning imports from specific Brazilian states – for instance, Ukraine has suspended imports of poultry from Rio Grande Do Sul.