Specialty Food Magazine is the leading publication for retailers, manufacturers and foodservice professionals in the specialty food trade. It provides news, trends and business-building insights that help readers keep their businesses competitive.
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previously nonbinding provisions are now binding, and they include the following: • Management is required to ensure that all employees who manufacture, process, pack, or hold food are qualified to perform their assigned duties. • Individuals must receive training on the principles of food hygiene and food safety, including the importance of employee health and hygiene. • Allergen cross-contact must be controlled. Implementation Assistance The FDA estimates that there are 73,000 facilities that will need to comply with the preventive controls. Significant resources will need to be committed to developing a training curriculum and getting it out into the field. Working with industry trade associations, state and local offi- cials, and land grant universities, the FDA has established the Food Safety Preventive Controls Alliance. Housed at the Illinois Institute of Technology, FSPCA has developed a curriculum and is currently training its trainers, with 40 to 60 qualified individuals enrolled in the program. The goal is to deliver the curriculum locally. Additionally, the FDA has established the FDA Technical Assistance Network, comprised of experts including exten- sion specialists, faculty from land grant universities, and others. Organizations can submit a question about the new rules via the FDA website. Each question will be given a case number and assigned to an expert. Some responses will be fast, others will take longer, based on the complexity of the question. There is no better time than now for those in the food industry to start paying attention to FSMA and its rules. As Michael Taylor, FDA deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine, says, "These rules are historic." And they will have a significant impact on all in the specialty food industry. fsma update Preventive controls must be effective, and food manufacturers must act quickly to resolve a food-safety problem. Management of the preventive controls includes: Monitoring: Conducted as appropriate for the preventive control. For instance, monitoring of a heat process to kill pathogens would include actual temperature values. Corrective actions: These actions must be timely, reduce the likelihood that the problem will recur, evaluate the affected food for safety, and prevent that food from entering commerce. Verification: Controls must be consistently implemented and effective, and could include validating with scientific evidence, calibration of verification instruments (such as thermometers), and reviewing records to verify that monitoring and corrective actions are being conducted. 2. Establishing a Risk-Based Supply Chain Program A manufacturer must also have a risk-based supply chain program for raw materials and other ingredients for which it has identified a hazard. For instance, a granola manufacturer that is just mixing raw ingredients would need to know that the ingredients are safe. This means the ingredients are received only from approved suppliers. Those suppliers would have to be approved by the manufacturer after considering a hazard analysis of the food, the entity that will be controlling that hazard, and supplier performance. A manufacturer will not be required to implement a preven- tive control when a hazard will be controlled by another processor. The manufacturer, however, will need to disclose that the food has not been processed to control the hazard and obtain written documentation from its customer that the control will take place in further processing. Separate dates have been established so manufacturers are not required to comply with the supply chain program before their suppliers are required to comply. 3. Current Good Manufacturing Practices The FDA still needs to publish guidance on the final Preventive Controls rule, which will include nonbinding provisions on Current Good Manufacturing Practices. However, some of the Ron Tanner is vice president, philanthropy, government, and industry relations for the Specialty Food Association. The FDA Technical Assistance Network allows organizations to submit a question about the new rules via the FDA website. @ GO TO THE KNOWLEDGE CENTER to download the recent webinar, The Food Safety Modernization Act: What You Need to Know in 2016 and Beyond Specialty Food Association members may also participate in FSMA Mondays Conference Calls, held the first Monday of each month. specialtyfood.com/knowledge-center (continued from p. 111) WINTER 2016 125