Proposed update to guidance on further processing (drying and concentration) of non-dairy animal products

Update: 10 September 2026

Updated guidance document and summary of submissions released

This consultation closed on 12 February 2026.

The updated guidance includes a revised concentration and drying section, which has been transferred from the existing guidance document Further Processing: Concentration and Drying, Hurdle Technology, Smoking, and Acidification and updated to reflect current requirements and references.

References throughout the guidance have also been reviewed and updated to align with the relevant Animal Products Regulations 2021 and Animal Products Notice: Production, Supply and Processing 2026.

Further Processing: Heat treatment, Commercial Sterilisation, High Pressure Processing, and Concentration and Drying – guidance document [PDF, 2.1 MB]

We also released a summary of submissions received during the consultation.

Analysis of Submissions: GD Further Processing (Chapter 2, Section 4: Concentration and Drying) [PDF, 324 KB]

Consultation background

New Zealand Food Safety invited you to submit feedback on the updated 'Animal products guidance document: Further processing'.

This consultation would have been of particular interest to any operators involved in the secondary processing of non-dairy animal products using drying or concentration processes under the Animal Products Act 1999.

This consultation opened on 15 January 2026 and closed at 5pm on 12 February 2026.

Consultation document

Draft guidance document: Further processing [PDF, 737 KB]

What was included in this consultation?

This consultation focused on updates to:

For the purposes of this consultation, all other sections were excluded.

About the proposed changes

New Zealand Food Safety proposed to update the concentration or drying section of the 'Animal products guidance document: Further processing'. The purpose of this guidance is to provide practical information for operators on the requirements and best practices for drying non-dairy animal products under the Animal Products Act.

This draft aimed to update the concentration or drying section to align with current Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) branding, legislation, and technical knowledge. The final revised guidance draft included updates to existing content and new sections included with information relating to:

pathogens that may be resistant to inactivation during drying (for example Salmonella)
development and validation of a drying process
implementation of validated procedures.

At the same time, we updated the legal references and other minor aspects of Chapter 1 of the guidance document.

We invited feedback to ensure the guidance was technically accurate and practical to support food safety outcomes.

Submissions are public information

Note that all, part, or a summary of your submission may be published on this website. Most often this happens when we issue a document that reviews the submissions received.

People can also ask for copies of submissions under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA). The OIA says we must make the content of submissions available unless we have good reason for withholding it. Those reasons are detailed in sections 6 to 9 of the OIA.

If you think there are grounds to withhold specific information from publication, make this clear in your submission or contact us. Reasons may include that it discloses commercially sensitive or personal information. However, any decision MPI makes to withhold details can be reviewed by the Ombudsman, who may direct us to release it.

Official Information Act 1982 – NZ Legislation

Our privacy commitment

The Privacy Act 2020 applies to all submissions. Any personal information you provide will be used only for the purpose of informing this consultation. All submissions will be read by MPI staff. MPI may also use artificial intelligence (AI) to summarise content and identify key themes. All AI outputs will be subject to human review.

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