FSMA Fridays: Everything You've Wanted To Know About FSMA, But Were Afraid To Ask (Part Two Of Five)

Check out Part One of this series

In the first portion of FSMA Fridays: Everything You've Wanted To Know About FSMA, But Were Afraid To Ask, Barbara Levin of SafetyChain and Dr. David Acheson of the Acheson Group began a question and answer with members of the food industry around the most-pressing concerns of the Food Safety Modernization Act. Here, in part two of the series, the duo continues the conversation.

Barbara: David, How can companies determine which rules are going to apply to them?

David: Yes, this is often asked and really tough to answer. In certain situations, the rules are pretty clear. That’s assuming that they don’t change in terms of what applies to whom. The first question one has to ask is, “Do I have to register with FDA as part of the requirement of the bio-terrorism act?” This, as everybody knows, is a statute that’s been around now for almost 10 years. It does require all food companies who manufacture processed pack or hold food, either domestically or internationally, if they are shipping it into the United States, to register with the FDA. FSMA changed that, through having to re-register every two years, on even years. We’ve just had that requirement in 2014, and will be again in 2016.

If, based on those BTX requirements, you have to register, then there’s a bunch of the rules that will apply to you, particularly the preventive control rules. Where this gets really tricky is in what the agency determines as mixed-type facilities, and the produce industry, I feel sorry for them, because I can’t figure out exactly who has to do what in that.

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