After years of health epidemics, import protection troubles, and marketplace disturbances that played on customer buoyancy and forced billions of dollars in overheads on the food system, the law mandated a paradigm change to establishing a mechanism that focuses on preventing food safety issues rather than just curing them.
The objective was to attain food safety goals, lessen health risks, reduce sickness, strengthen buyer assurance, and improve business opportunities for American farmers and food companies. For this purpose, a new law was brought into force by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and it was known as the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).
The FSMA is about FDA essentially changing its approach to employ the food safety system. This applies for both native produce and imported food. The FSMA requires compliance to food safety and a level playing required by the industry as well as patrons of American. While FSMA strengthen industry’s accountability for food safety, it also builds on and reinforces FDA’s governing role in offering practical proficiency, setup and encouraging agreement with food safety principles. FSMA requires FDA to play a critical leadership role in the future of global food safety.
FSMA Operational Strategy
The operational approach followed by FSMA includes working towards improving public health such that FDA plays a critical catalyst role for innovation and advancement towards improving food safety practices and avoiding related problems. To achieve this, the FDA through the FSMA will work towards optimizing the efficacy, competence, and reliability of its functions locally. It will improve working affiliations with states and other authorities to achieve this.
FDA will drastically intensify its scrutiny and surveillance apparatus to include inspection, sampling, testing, conducted through its own playing field and through alliances with collaborator agencies and the food industry.
Things Food Packaging Suppliers Should Look For
Food packaging suppliers need to make a note of the types and purposes of inspection. This includes capably vetting vendors for food safety arrangement to direct risk-based inspection priority, regularity, profundity, and approach. FDA will assess the fulfilment of individual firms through specialised inspection and sampling methodologies used in a tactical manner to make the most of preceding sectors and suppliers.
Compliance and Enforcement Tools
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Food Safety Modernization Act follows certain administrative compliance tools as well as legislative enforcement tools. Compliance tools include voluntary correction at the field level, voluntary correction at the district level, product’s administrative detention, voluntary and mandatory recalls, and administrative suspension of registration. Legislative tools include seizure and injunction actions and criminal prosecution.
Meeting the FSMA Requirements
To meet FDA requirements per the FSMA, food packaging suppliers and manufacturers must take steps to ensure a healthy compliance environment. Join Shawn K. Stevens, our expert speaker, who is also a founding member of Food Industry Counsel, LLC, as she counsels and guides you through the situations where food packaging and FDA regulations collide.
