On April 25th, the FDA announced they would begin routine inspections in March 2020 to verify compliance with the intentional adulteration rule.
Under a May 2016 final rule, foreign and domestic food facilities that manufacture, process, pack, or hold food for human or animal consumption in the U.S. and are required to register as food facilities (with some exceptions) must prepare and implement a written food defense plan that assesses significant vulnerabilities to deliberate contamination where the intent is to cause wide-scale harm to public health. These facilities must also identify and implement strategies to minimize or prevent these vulnerabilities and establish and implement food defense monitoring procedures, corrective actions, and verification activities.
Compliance with this rule will be required as of July 26, 2019, for facilities other than small businesses and July 26, 2020, for small businesses. This announcement stated that many companies are concerned about the timing and the depth of the regulations in that they may not be able to fully comply in time.
Thursday, April 25, 2019
Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg Trade Report
This announcement stated that many companies are concerned about the timing and the depth of the regulations in that they may not be able to fully comply in time.
We at CFI are not concerned. We’ve developed and honed a Food Safety Defense Policy to protect our commodities while we’re handling them. As we’ve been in compliance, subject to monthly 3rd party audits, we already have a FSDP as part of our standard operations. Our locations are covered by cameras to catch food safety violations.
In the interest of protecting the food in our possession, we’ve overhauled everything for food safety to meet FSMA requirements, constantly reviewing these processes to ensure we have the best practices and highest standards as our new procedures are revised as new industry changes arise. Now that we’re a part of the K+N family, CFI has access to another standard of audit certifications to prove that our standards are the highest in the industry. Our station-wide commitment to these rigorous standards includes surprise audits monthly that I personally conduct to keep everyone on their toes where food safety is concerned.
Monthly surprise audits, frequent review of cameras and processes, and thrice daily warehouse checks set a high bar for safety and yet we can’t wait to see it continue to rise. So far in 2019, our offices in Miami, New York and Honolulu have all gotten a surprise visit from me to audit and advise. One secret to our successes in safety comes from using our Los Angeles office (my home office) as a test kitchen for new processes. By beginning in one single location, we can test new SOPs until we find critical failure points and create steps to avoid those when disseminated out to the other branches.
If you have any questions or concerns, we at CFI encourage you to reach out and discuss them with us. The quality and safety of our cargo is our most deeply help priority. You can’t always control the weather, or port congestion, or capacity, but we can and do control the way we handle and ship every commodity in our offices. We’d love to tell you more about the actions we take every day to protect and maintain the quality of cargo.
