In order to implement the new Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) signed by President Obama, the United States Food and Drug Administration has issued two proposed rules aimed at ensuring imported foods are safe and meet the same standards as food produced within the United States.

These proposals are part of the FSMA approach modernizing the current food safety system. FSMA focuses on preventing  food safety issues, rather than dealing with issues after they have already occurred.

Under these new rules importers would be responsible for verifying their foreign suppliers are using modern, preventative food safety practices, and are achieving the same level of food safety as domestic growers and processors. The FDA is also proposing rules that would strengthen quality, transparency and objectivity of foreign food safety audits.

These new measures are in direct responses to the challenges of food safety in the world’s current global food system. Imported foods from about 150 countries come to the United States and account for roughly 15 percent of the U.S. food supply. This includes 50 percent of the fresh fruit and 20 percent of the fresh vegetables Americans consume each year.

“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, M.D. “Today’s announcement of these two new proposed rules will help to meet the challenges of our complex global food supply system. Our success will depend in large part on partnerships across nations, industries, and business sectors.”

Under the newly proposed Foreign Supplier Verification Programs (FSVP), U.S. importers would have a clearly defined responsibility to verify that their suppliers produce foods that meet U.S. food safety standards. Importers would be required to have a plan for foods they import, including the identification of hazards associated with each food. They would also be required to conduct activities that adequately assure these hazards are being identified and controlled.

“FSMA provides the FDA with a modern tool kit that shifts the paradigm for imports, as well as domestic foods, from a strategy of reaction to one of systematic prevention,” said Michael R. Taylor, deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine. “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.”