Statement in Response to Congressional Report
February 4, 2021
Nothing is more important to Earth’s Best than the trust and confidence of parents that our organic products provide safe nutrition for healthy babies. Our rigorous internal standards and testing procedures ensure Earth’s Best products meet or exceed the current federal guidelines. In addition, we work collaboratively with the Baby Food Council (composed of other manufacturers, the Environmental Defense Fund and Cornell University), the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture to continuously refine and improve upon the standards to ensure our products exceed safety and nutrition standards – including reducing the levels of heavy metals that occur naturally in soil and water.
We are disappointed that the Subcommittee report examined outdated data and does not reflect our current practices. The report also inaccurately characterized a meeting with the FDA. Like any food producer, we meet with regulatory and oversight agencies to refine and update our policies and procedures to ensure the safety of our products. As science evolves, so too should our standards and practices, which is why we met with the FDA last year to discuss how to better refine those standards and practices.
Following the meeting, we took several steps to reduce the levels of heavy metals in our finished products – including no longer using brown rice in our products that are primarily rice based, changing other ingredients and conducting additional testing of finished product before shipping. Meeting with the FDA did what the regulatory process is supposed to: collaboratively drive improvements that benefit the consumer.
Earth’s Best has consistently supported efforts to reduce naturally occurring heavy metals from our food supply and stands ready to assist the Subcomittee’s efforts toward that goal.
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