FSMA Fridays: What To Expect From The FDA And FSMA In 2015 (Part Two Of Five)

Check out Part 1 of this series

On the last Friday of every month, 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 first portion of FSMA Fridays: What To Expect From The FDA And FSMA In 2015, Safety Chain’s Barbara Levin discussed with the Acheson Group’s Dr. David Acheson and Melanie Neumann what the FDA and the Food Safety Modernization Act have in store for the food industry in 2015. Here, in part two of the series, the panel will continue tackling the subject at hand and answer questions regarding FSMA’s finalization and things the FDA may do outside of FSMA’s seven pillar rules.

Barbara: Melanie, welcome to FSMA Fridays. Let's talk about some brass tacks now. When is it anticipated that the rules will be finalized?

Melanie Neumann, CFO and VP of the Acheson Group: Thanks, Barbara. It's good to be back. Before I answer this question, I want to circle back to question number three of this webinar. I really want to give David a lot of credit for how he positioned question number three, because really, I think the spirit of FSMA and the spirit of FDA's intention of it is going from reactive to proactive and preventative. I'd like to think that what I'm seeing industry doing — and some are embracing it and some are, I think, really struggling with embracing it — is shifting from that mentality. When I was in industry, we used to think of the regulations, making us think, “What would you do if?” I put the emphasis on would and if, and FSMA is making us think of “What will I do and when?”

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