Laura Nichols

Staff writer

The FDA will reverse course on a proposed regulation of spent grain from breweries and distilleries, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer said Thursday.

The New York Democrat, who spoke earlier in Rochester and elsewhere against the proposal, said in a news release that he had spoken by phone to Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg. Hamburg said the FDA had "realized the rule had very negative unintended consequences for both brewers and farmers," according to the news release. She said the FDA would revise the rule in a way that doesn't prevent sale or donation of spent grain.

Spent grain is created after dry grains such as wheat are soaked and cooked during brewing or distilling. Most brewers and distillers give the grain, or sell it at a low cost, to farmers, who use it as livestock feed. That also saves the businesses from having to take the spent grain to a landfill.

Schumer said he would keep an eye on the FDA revision, and Mark James of the New York Farm Bureau's Central New York office said the bureau would do so as well.

James and Mike Alcorn, founder of CB Craft Brewers in Honeoye Falls, said they were very pleased by the FDA reversal.

Farmers have used spent grain from breweries for decades, James said.

"This is a safe process," Alcorn said. "Farmers would not buy grain that was tainted."

In addition, James said, "Cattle in particular are very finicky about what they eat. ... Quite frankly, the cattle wouldn't eat" tainted grain.

As part of its implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act, the FDA would have regulated breweries and distilleries as animal feed producers. They would have had to prepare written food safety plans that would include expensive hazard analysis and monitoring. It also would have affected wineries that sell or give grape pomace — what's left over after pressing grapes — to farmers.

Schumer pointed out that no human or animal illnesses in the United States have been traced to the use of spent grain in the decades in which it has been fed to cattle and pigs.

"I made clear to Commissioner Hamburg when we spoke that this ridiculous rule would have been extremely damaging for Upstate New York, harming both our burgeoning craft brew industry and farmers alike," Schumer said in the news release. "I am glad she realized that the proposed rule is misguided and that she is committed to protecting this win-win transaction."