FSMA Fridays: 2nd Review Cycles Of Preventative Controls, Supplier Verification, And Produce Rules (Part Three Of Five)

Check out Part 1 and Part 2 of this series

Safety Chain’s VP of Marketing and Communications, Jill Bender, discusses the second review cycles of several of the Food Safety Modernization Act’s key rules with the Acheson Group’s Dr. David Acheson and Jennifer McEntire.

On the last Friday of every month, Barbara Levin of SafetyChain, a leading provider of food safety and quality assurance automation and compliance solutions, hosts FSMA Fridays™, the leading online forum for the food and beverage community to learn the latest information about the FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). Featuring Dr. David Acheson, the popular monthly interactive pod/webcast is sponsored by SafetyChain Software and The Acheson Group.

In the second portion of FSMA Fridays: 2nd Review Cycles Of Preventative Controls, Supplier Verification, And Produce Rules, Safety Chain’s Jill Bender discussed the role of the finished-product testing and verification of food-safety plans. Here, in part three of the series, the Acheson Group’s Dr. David Acheson addresses responsibilities and requirements to control suppliers across a food-maker’s supply chain.

Jill: Let's go ahead and move to the next question. David, why don't you go ahead and take this one: What are the requirements and responsibilities for controlling suppliers along a company's supply chain?

David: This is another one that was predictable, and it was predictable for a couple of reasons. It was predictable because, first and foremost, everybody in the food industry recognizes that controlling supply-chain risk is a very important part of controlling brand risk. It's where leading companies are trying to go, and it's a huge challenge. It makes logical sense, and we know from experience that suppliers have and will probably continue to send us ingredients and food that is not suitable, and it causes problems and it causes recalls. There's precedent here.

The second reason why this is logical is based on what was in the foreign supply verification program, which we've talked about in the past and we'll certainly talk about that next month in more depth. But, the foreign supplier verification program is essentially a supply chain, risk-control requirement for imported, FDA-regulated foods. It really boils down to, again, looking at the foreign supplier program. It boils down to: who you're getting food from, is there a hazard in it, and how is that hazard being controlled? It was evident, when the foreign supplier program came out, that we had set a different bar for imported foods than foods sourced domestically. It was pretty evident that was going to fly, from a trade perspective, and that's likely part of the driver here, as well as the somewhat logic of controlling supply chain risk from a public health perspective.

Please log in or register below to read the full article.