Untitled Document

Current Issues

30 June 2010 : Increasing U.S. Foreign Food Inspections

Increasing U.S. Foreign Food Inspections

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the number of foreign food inspections will be increased to improve food safety for U.S. consumers which the emphases will be mainly placed on high risk establishments. Paralleling, the comparable domestic food inspections will also be performed for overall consumer protection.  

Initially, the identification of high risk food is achieved through risk evaluation basis.  Subsequently, USFDA will examine and analyze these identified high risk food products’ information in terms of global-and country-specific data including importation volume, refusal rates on denied import entries and other relevant considerations.   Then, the selections of inspected countries or firms will be based on the analysis of the global-and country-specific data.

Remarkably, the USFDA claims that the increasing number of inspections is being impartially carried out worldwide with no specific country, region or company.  The selected countries for inspection will be notified through both their embassy and relevant regulatory authorities.  Importantly, the inspections will not be occurred without notification via these two bodies.  The relevant competent regulatory will be requested for information concerning specific food processing, production establishments or particular concerns for inspection.

 Source: USFDA