Developments Related to the Compliance Date for FDA’s Final Determination on the GRAS Status of Partially Hydrogenated Oils

As the June 18, 2018 compliance date for the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) final determination that partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs) are no longer generally recognized as safe (GRAS) approaches, the food industry has undertaken efforts to obtain clarification and flexibility from FDA on several issues related to the compliance date, including (1) clarifying the regulatory status of PHO-containing products on the market after the compliance date, (2) requesting an extension of the compliance date to accommodate the time needed for the agency to respond to the pending food additive petition on PHOs, and (3) seeking enforcement discretion to use existing label inventory that declares PHOs as an ingredient after the ingredient has been removed from product formulations.