An official website of the United States government.

This is not the current EPA website. To navigate to the current EPA website, please go to www.epa.gov. This website is historical material reflecting the EPA website as it existed on January 19, 2021. This website is no longer updated and links to external websites and some internal pages may not work. More information »

Pesticides

EPA Addresses Supply Chain Issues for Food-Contact Surface Sanitizer Products

For Release: May 15, 2020

Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued its third temporary modification to Pesticide Registration Notice 98-10 to include food-contact surface sanitizer products containing the active ingredient isopropyl alcohol.

This new time-limited amendment to PRN 98-10 extends some of the supply chain flexibilities in the April modification (6 pp, 159 K, About PDFto products used in the food manufacture and preparation industries. Specifically, this temporary amendment expands these flexibilities to manufacturers of food-contact surface sanitizer products containing isopropyl alcohol. Additionally, isopropyl alcohol has been added to the list of active ingredients considered to be commodity chemicals by the temporary amendment.   

These isopropyl alcohol sanitizer products are not to be applied directly to food. Instead, they are used to sanitize equipment and surfaces used in food manufacturing and food preparation.

EPA intends for these flexibilities to increase the availability of products for use against the novel coronavirus. In addition, EPA is responding to feedback from the food manufacture and preparation industries that they are experiencing challenges acquiring sanitizers used in production facilities processing low-moisture products like cereal, flour, and industrial baked goods.