Indian and other foreign companies exporting food products to the United States will soon have to contend with tougher American import norms.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has proposed two new rules under which importers would be accountable for verifying that their foreign suppliers are implementing modern, prevention-oriented food safety practices, and achieving the same level of food safety as American growers and processors.
The FDA is also proposing rules to strengthen the quality, objectivity, and transparency of foreign food safety audits on which many food companies and importers currently rely to help manage the safety of their global food supply chains.
The US imports food products from as many as 150 countries, accounting for 15 per cent of its food supply. As much as 50 per cent of the fresh fruits and 20 per cent of the fresh vegetables that Americans consume are all imported.
“We must work toward global solutions to food safety so that whether you serve your family food grown locally or imported you can be confident that it is safe,” said FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg, noting that the two new proposed rules will help to meet the challenges of America’s complex global food supply system.
The new rules are in line with the recently-enacted Food Safety Modernisation Act to respond to the new safety challenges. “Our success will depend in large part on partnerships across nations, industries, and business sectors,” the FDA commissioner said.
As per the proposed foreign supplier verification programmes, US importers would for the first time have a clearly defined responsibility to verify that their suppliers produce food to meet US food safety requirements. Importers would be required to have a plan for imported food, including identifying hazards associated with each food that are reasonably likely to occur. Importers would be required to conduct activities that provide adequate assurances that these identified hazards are being adequately controlled.
“Rather than relying primarily on FDA investigators at the ports to detect and respond to food safety problems, importers would, for the first time, be held accountable for verifying, in a manner transparent to the FDA, that the food they import is safe,” said FDA’s deputy commissioner for food and veterinary medicine Michael R. Taylor.
The FDA, mandated to establish a programme for the Accreditation of Third-Party Auditors for imported food, says it proposes to recognise accreditation bodies based on criteria such as competency and impartiality. The accreditation bodies, which could be foreign government agencies or private companies, would in turn accredit third-party auditors to audit and issue certifications for foreign food facilities and food, under certain circumstances.
FDA proposes to use certifications to determine whether to admit certain imported food that are deemed to pose a safety risk into the United States.