Last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a new outline of the agency’s comprehensive approach to helping ensure the safety of food imported into the U.S. The document is FDA’s “Strategy for the Safety of Imported Food“.
For imported food, the volume and variety of imports and the complexity of global supply chains make food safety a challenging issue to address. Further complicating the issue, some exporting countries may have food safety systems that differ from U.S. food safety systems, and differing levels of regulatory capacity.
FDA has been provided with a range of tools and authorities to address the situation both domestically and in the foreign arena.
- The U.S. imports about 15% of its overall food supply from more than 200 countries or territories
- The U.S. received 13.8 million food shipments in 2018. Between 14-15 million are expected in 2019
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