FSMA Fridays: What Does Being FSMA Compliant Really Mean? (Part Three Of Four)

View The Entire Webinar or check out Part One and Part Two of this series

In the second portion of FSMA Fridays: What Does Being FSMA Compliant Really Mean? SafetyChain’s VP of Marketing, Jill Bender, and the Acheson Group’s Dr. David Acheson discussed what exactly FSMA is trying to achieve and what the food industry is currently doing regarding FSMA’s documents and record keeping requirements. Here, in part three of the series, Bender and Acheson will continue addressing questions from the webinar’s live audience regarding FSMA compliance.

Jill: A question around inspectors. Will there be enough auditors or inspectors in place and are they in the process of training them?

David: Yes that’s a common question. Has the FDA hired a bunch of people and the answer is no, I’m not aware that they have. My belief is the frequency of inspection isn’t really going to change. The number of inspectors in manufacturing and processing facilities will not change. What will change is their focus or their emphasis will move during a routine inspection to start to ask question about FSMA compliance.

I think where we are going to see change is on farms as the FDA leverages others, particularly at the state level, to do inspections on farms around produce rule. Obviously that is a little bit down the road, but in some instances, not by much.