Purity Foods, Inc., a Hudson, MI-based processor of conventional and organic grains, has been acquired by Andersons, Inc. Grain Group, based in Maumee, OH. Certified by the Quality Assurance International (QAI) and the America Institute of Baking (AIB), Purity Foods is comprised of a two productions lines and a 650,000-bushel storage capability. “Our investment in Purity Foods is consistent with our objective to expand the Grain Group’s food ingredient business,” said Anderson Inc. food ingredients and specialty grains director Andy Vollmar in a press release. “The Andersons has been a long-time supplier of food grade corn, oats, soybeans and wheat to the US food market. We are now moving into milling ancient grain products with a direct transparent supply chain, giving visibility to and for our farm customers as well as our food manufacturers. We are excited about the new capabilities this acquisition gives our company.”

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) denied a petition filed by the NRDC, together with the Breast Cancer Fund, Center for Environmental Health, Center for Food Safety, Center for Science in the Public Interest and the Environmental Working Group. The petition filed in December of 2014 sought regulation to ban Perchlorate in dry food packaging. FDA, in their formal denial stated that the petition was denied because they did not agree with findings by NRDC, nor were they the proper subject of a food additive petition, and that food additive use of perchlorate was already “removed from §177.1210 in a final rule published elsewhere in this issue of the Federal Registerand we decline to address the petitioners’ assertions regarding the safety of the food additive use.”