FDA’s New Era of Smarter Food Safety

The agency’s vision is based on three fundamental tenets: It must be people-led; it should be FSMA-based; and solutions should be technology-enabled.

Together, a New Era of Smarter Food Safety
Source: Presentation at FDA’s Public Meeting on Oct. 21, 2019; A New Era of Smarter Food Safety by Frank Yiannas, FDA deputy commissioner for food policy and response.

It has been almost five years since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) developed rules and guidance for the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) of 2011. This comprehensive and globalized food safety approach was intended to replace the regulatory implementation directive for the basic tenets of the hazard analysis critical control point (HACCP) food safety system.

FSMA developers recognized that current consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies were complex, and for food safety principles to work well, a farm-to-fork approach was needed as well as a reach overseas for assurances that suppliers were practicing the same food safety rules mandated in the U.S. Consequently, the human food rules in FSMA (Barach, 2017) were expanded to address foreign-made food, produce food safety, and incorporate practices to prevent intentional adulteration and ensure food security. 

With these past major advancements and comprehensive steps to develop a truly global food safety system approach, it is fair to ask, what does FDA need and expect beyond FSMA? In both HACCP and FSMA programs, food safety plans were to be periodically reviewed and updated because FDA and plan developers anticipated that technology advances were inevitable, and that new emerging pathogens and processing practices would present new challenges to previous food safety programs. Changes in technology, pathogens, and processing are the driving factors behind FDA’s awareness that we are entering into a new era of smarter food safety, indicating that perhaps we should re-evaluate the use of new innovations to improve it.

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