TTB NEWSLETTER | Weekly News

March 15, 2019

IN THIS ISSUE

Greetings! This week’s top news includes an award presented to two of our managers in ALFD, a TTB Tip about how to use the information found on our application processing times pages, Permits Online will be down for system upgrade this weekend, and FDA is presenting a free webinar on the transfer of heavy metals to wine and beer when using diatomaceous earth for filtration.

TTB EMPLOYEES WIN TREASURY'S GEARS OF GOVERNMENT AWARD

Alcohol Labeling and Formulation Division (ALFD) Director Janet Scalese and Deputy Director Gracie Joy recently won the prestigious Gears of Government Award. The award honors Scalese and Joy’s leadership and ALFD’s hard work and outstanding achievements in using a Congressional set aside of $5 million, combined with strategic policy, process and technology changes, to bring turnaround times for label and formula approvals down from as high as 75 days to less than 10 days in FY 2017, as well as achieving its FY 2018 service standard of 15 days, despite unprecedented increases in submissions.

• Read more: TTB Employees Win Treasury's Gears of Government Award

TTB TIP - UNDERSTANDING THE LABEL AND FORMULA APPLICATION PROCESSING TIMES PAGES

Our Processing Times for Label Applications and Processing Times for Beverage Alcohol Formulas pages are two of the most popular on TTB.gov. If you are wondering how long it might take to get your approvals, use the information on these pages to make a good estimate.

Average Label/Formula Processing Time

The number of days shown are determined by averaging our processing times from the previous two weeks. Because it’s based on past performance it may not be an exact prediction of current or future performance, but it does provide you with an estimate of how long you should plan for in your product timeline.

Your actual processing time is impacted by many things, including staff availability and fluctuations in how many new and corrected applications we receive.

Today We are Processing New Applications Received On...

We generally process applications in the order in which we receive them. How quickly we are able to process the new applications received on a particular day depends on several factors, including how many corrected applications are waiting to be processed, because corrected applications go to the top of the queue above new applications received on the same day.

If you have feedback on these pages, please take the one-question survey available at the bottom of each page.

PERMITS ONLINE OUTAGE THIS WEEKEND

Permits Online will be unavailable from 6 a.m. (EDT) on Saturday, March 16, through 8 a.m. (EDT) on Sunday, March 17, while we update the system. During this timeframe, users will be unable to use Permits Online.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your patience. Please contact the TTB Help Desk at TTB.Helpdesk@ttb.gov if you experience any issues or problems following the upgrade.

FDA WEBINAR: FACTORS AFFECTING TRANSFER OF HEAVY METALS TO BEER AND WINE DURING FILTRATION WITH DIATOMACEOUS EARTH

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Institute for Food Safety and Health (IFSH) is presenting a free webinar on the transfer of heavy metals, such as arsenic and lead, to beer and wine when using diatomaceous earth (DE) as a filtration medium. FDA/IFSH and TTB collaborated on the research that this webinar is based on.

• Register for Webinar

The webinar will include information about how the transfer can happen, and ways to mitigate or reduce the transfer of heavy metals from DE to alcohol beverages.

TITLE: Factors Affecting Transfer of Heavy Metals to Beer and Wine during Filtration

SPEAKER: Ben Redan, Ph.D. Research Chemist/ORISE Fellow FDA

DATE: Wednesday, March 27, 2019

TIME: 11 a.m. - noon (EDT)

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