Why New York’s Food Safety Overhaul Misses the Mark
The Framers of the Constitution saw the problems with a patchwork of state laws for products that cross state lines. This is why the Framers vested interstate commerce at the Federal level. The Framers knew that by creating a federal level for standards, it would enable interstate commerce, allow companies to adhere to one set of rules. Congress used those prescient powers to regulate foods, drugs, and cosmetics – to ensure there was one standard for food, drug, and cosmetics safety across the entire country.
Today, our food safety is a system built on standards, evidence, and enforcement at the national level. The same packaged product is manufactured in one place, shipped through multiple states, and sold everywhere, often through the same distributors and online channels. When the baseline standard is consistent, companies build and test to one set of expectations, regulators can enforce it more cleanly, and consumers can trust that a box of food bought in Buffalo is held to the same floor of scrutiny as one bought in Birmingham.
A new proposal in Albany, the Food Safety and Chemical Disclosure Act, risks moving New York in the opposite direction. The bill would create a New York-specific reporting and review process for ingredients that are “Generally Recognized as Safe,” or GRAS. In practice, that means asking companies to satisfy a separate, state-only compliance system for ingredients already governed through federal law and the federal food safety framework.
Supporters describe this as consumer protection. But the first question in any real safety system is: what problem does this solve, and what new problems does it create? Our current GRAS system already requires all of the data considered to be publicly available, and all ingredients need to be listed. This means that trade secret data cannot be used in a GRAS determination, and consumers already know what ingredients are used in their foods. Supporters say that companies that are making GRAS determinations that lead to approval of unsafe food ingredients. Let’s be clear – that’s illegal under federal law, and no New York legislation is going to scare unscrupulous companies that would skirt federal law into compliance just because a state passed a law.
The problem with a parallel state GRAS process is that it does not create one stronger standard. It creates two overlapping systems with different requirements, timelines, and interpretations.
As a toxicologist, my work is to define when something is safe at the levels people actually consume. But that work only protects the public when it is applied consistently. A patchwork system makes compliance harder for responsible companies. It creates openings for bad actors who want to take shortcuts. And it makes it harder for consumers to know what a label or a claim actually means.
The second problem is capacity. The kind of review contemplated here requires specialized staff, scientific judgment, and a national view of the supply chain. A state-level review process inevitably lacks the same visibility into how ingredients are used across products and across markets. That matters if the goal is early detection, consistent enforcement, and clear signals to the public.
Then there is cost, which is not a side issue. A separate New York-only compliance regime means new filings, legal work, documentation, and internal review. These processes are expensive. Some companies will treat that as a manageable nuisance and pass costs down the line. Moreover, New York’s proposed GRAS system is opaque, giving the state more power than even the FDA to overrule experienced toxicologists and food safety experts in order to score political points and ignore the science.
Others, especially smaller brands, will respond the way businesses respond to friction: by simplifying. That can mean cutting product lines, delaying reformulations, or limiting distribution into New York. Less volume moving through New York means fewer shifts and fewer hours for the workers who make the supply chain run, from manufacturing to distribution to retail. Consumers feel it too, because compliance costs have only one destination over time: the price tag.
New York should not build a parallel bureaucracy that adds cost and confusion without a clear safety payoff. If lawmakers believe the GRAS process needs improvement, there is a straightforward solution: push for reform at the federal level, where national standards can be strengthened without creating conflicting state systems. In fact, reform proposals are already being considered at the federal level. That approach avoids patchwork regulations, protects interstate commerce, and preserves the basic principle consumers actually care about: safety rules should not change when a truck crosses a state line.
Dr. Lyle D. Burgoon, Ph.D.
President & CEO
Raptor Pharm & Tox, Ltd.
