FSMA Fridays: How Prepared Is The Food Industry For FSMA? (Part Two Of Four)

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In part one of FSMA Fridays: How Prepared Is The Food Industry For FSMA? SafetyChain’s Jill Bender was joined by The Acheson Group’s Dr. David Acheson and Rolando Gonzalez to discuss the results of a SafetyChain survey to the food industry asking how prepared the industry is for the implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act. Here, in part two of the series, the trio will continue the conversation by addressing how relevant the results of the survey were to actual readiness and what the industry is viewing as the top challenges of FSMA.

Jill: Rolando, I’m going to ask you to take the next question. What are your thoughts on the results relevant to are companies ready for FSMA?

Rolando: Not surprisingly, most companies indicated that they’re somewhat ready, which is pretty much what we expect at this point. It’s likely a reflection of the fact that there is definitely some work to do to get ready for FSMA, including the PCQI identifying and training their PCQI, as David mentioned, relooking at the hazard analysis, making sure there are proper preventive controls identified and implemented for any of those hazards that were identified as required.

Now, we had a quarter of all respondents indicating that they’re ready, and that’s great. But, then there was also a few indicating that they’re not ready at all. In that case, what we highly recommend at this point is acting now, forming a team, designating that PCQI person, conducting a gap analysis and defining an action plan to be ready by the compliance date. Just remember that, for larger companies, that is as early as mid-September of this year.

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