FSMA Fridays: FSMA & The Election Year: What Have We Seen So Far? (Part Two Of Three)

View the entire webcast or read Part One of this series

In part one of FSMA Fridays: FSMA & The Election Year: What Have We Seen So Far? SafetyChain Software’s VP of Marketing, Jill Bender, discusses what we have seen so far during this election year relating to FSMA with The Acheson Group’s (TAG) Dr. David Acheson. Here, in part two, the duo continues their conversation by discussing predictions related to food safety under the next presidential administration.

Jill: I don't think I could imagine undertaking a new food safety agency with seeing even if it's worth it with everything else went on. We talked about it; you sort of touched on this, in regards to predictions with the next Administration, really, with those four years at a glance. I mean, you already touched on this a little bit, but any thoughts on that?

David: Well, other than to say that I see the FSMA train continuing to rumble down the tracks. There's obviously a great deal of implementation that's going to kick in. The deadlines for the two big PC Rules for large companies, we know we're past that. Every other deadline that's going to come in will be post-election. I don't frankly see those changing. I don't think those compliance dates are going to shift. They've already just shifted a little bit in certain areas. More on alignment than really anything else, so it's a logical shift to try to align the rules a little better, so I think that's probably not going to be added to.

I think the predictions for the next four years, we're seeing a, I think, a change in the FDA's approach to food safety. They're currently, I think, less tolerant. They're less open to conversations. They are feeling a lot of pressure, the agency itself. I think much more on the FDA side rather than FSIS, so I do see that trend continuing. I really do. It's not related to FSMA per se, it's more related to lack of tolerance for conversations around scope of recalls, which is driven by their recent Inspector General Report. Again, it has nothing to do with FSMA.