FDA Food Safety Modernization Act Program

The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) is one of the most comprehensive reforms of food security for over 70 years. On this occasion, the United States Accreditation Inc. is recognized by the FDA as an accreditation body.

What does FSMA (FDA Food Safety Modernization Act Program) cover?

There are five major elements included in the Food Safety Modernization Act:

• Preventive controls - For the first time, FDA has a legislative mandate to require comprehensive, prevention-based controls across the food supply to prevent or significantly minimize the likelihood of problems occurring.
• Inspection and Compliance - The legislation recognizes that inspection is an important means of holding industry accountable for its responsibility to produce safe food. FDA is committed to applying its inspection resources in a risk-based manner and adopting innovative inspection approaches.
• Imported Food Safety - FDA has new tools to ensure that imported foods meet U.S. standards and are safe for our consumers. For example, for the first time, importers must verify that their foreign suppliers have adequate preventive controls in place to ensure safety, and FDA will be able to accredit qualified third party auditors to certify that foreign food facilities are complying with U.S. food safety standards.
• Response - For the first time, FDA has mandatory recall authority for all food products. FDA expects that it will only need to invoke this authority infrequently since the food industry largely honors our requests for voluntary recalls. The agency has other new authorities that are also in effect: expanded administrative detention of products that are potentially in violation of the law, and suspension of a food facility’s registration.
• Enhanced Partnerships - The legislation recognizes the importance of strengthening existing collaboration among all food safety agencies—U.S. federal, state, local, territorial, tribal and foreign--to achieve our public health goals. For example, it directs FDA to improve training of state, local, territorial and tribal food safety officials.

Soon, According to the approval received by the FDA, the United States Accreditation Inc. will authorized to accredit third-party certification bodies, also known as third-party auditors.

Soon, the United States Accreditation Inc. is recognized by the US FDA to accredit certification bodies capable of conducting food safety inspections such as:

• Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) Systems (Juice HACCP)
• Fish and Fishery Products (Seafood HACCP)
• Thermally Processed Low-Acid Foods Packaged in Hermetically
• Sealed Containers (LACF)
• Acidified Foods

Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) empowers FDA to take proactive steps to prevent the sale, distribution, and consumption of tainted food products by recognizing accreditation bodies - like U.S. Accreditation Inc. - to assess the competence of food safety inspection organizations according to the international standard, ISO/IEC 17065. The goal is to create a food safety system that focuses upon preventing contamination rather than reacting to problems that have already occurred.