Used to be, brewers could send their spent grains, the leftovers after their brewing is done and the beverage…decanted…to ranchers to add to the latter’s feed supply.  Now, though, the FDA is “proposing” a set of regulations that would require brewers to treat their spent grains as pet food(!), meaning these leftovers must be dried and packaged without human contact.

This is expensive—too expensive for most brewers to handle.  Their landfill alternative isn’t any better: one Chicago brewer says it would cost him $100,000, every year, to send his leftover grains to a landfill.

To illustrate the benefits of this arrangement, so disliked by the government, for both parties, there’s this example.

…the brewers get those leftovers removed from their facilities for free.

And

…dairy and cattle farmers like Jim Minich, who gets 30 tons of spent grain from Revolution Brewing each week.  Not only does the grain save him more than $100,000 a year in feed costs, his 750 cows also produce more milk after [getting the spent grains.]

Never mind that there’s never been a problem for cattle or for humans eating/drinking the beef or milk from spent grain-fed cows.

There might be.  Sometime.  Maybe.  Gotta regulate.

The FDA does say, after a hue and cry, that they’re looking at revising these proposed regulations.  We’ll see.