As our readership is well aware, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) has provided the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with new authorities to help ensure that imported foods meet the same safety standards as foods produced domestically. The FSMA regulations concerning imported foods complement FDA’s existing collaborations among food safety regulators (federal, state, local, territorial, tribal and foreign) to achieve public health goals.

On January 13, 2017, the FDA announced that it will hold a public hearing on February 14-15, 2017, in College Park, Maryland, regarding strategic partnerships to enhance the safety of food imported into the United States. The public hearing will provide stakeholders with an opportunity to provide input on the Agency’s activities related to imported foods.  In particular, the hearing is slated to focus on partnerships to:

• improve safety capabilities through capacity building;

• partnerships that incorporate information from private entities and foreign competent authorities to inform risk-based decision-making;

• partnerships that recognize commodity-specific export programs; and

• partnerships that recognize the robustness of a nation’s entire food safety system

The Agency is also seeking information from competent authorities in other countries and from private entities to help inform FDA regarding risk-based decision-making, commodity-specific export control programs in other countries, and systems recognition.

Additional information on registering and participating in this public hearing is available here.  Registration ends February 8, 2017.