FDA Strategy for the Safety of Imported Food

The FDA Strategy for the Safety of Imported Food is a national sectoral strategy of the United States of America. Its main objectives are (1) preventing food safety problems in the foreign supply chain prior to entry into the United States, (2) effectively detecting and refusing entry of unsafe foods at the border, and (3) rapidly responding when FDA learns of unsafe imported foods.
More specifically, the Strategy aims to optimize use of foreign inspections; ensure importer use of verified foreign suppliers through effective implementation of the Foreign Supplier Verification Programs final rule; take into account the public health assurances of reliable audits such as those issued under FDA’s Accredited Third-Party Certification Program or pursuant to other assurance programs aligned with FDA food safety requirements; incentivize importers to use verified suppliers of safe food through the Voluntary Qualified Importer Program; leverage the oversight efforts of regulatory counterparts with strong food safety systems; increase awareness of and training on food safety requirements and strengthen the capacity of foreign suppliers to produce safe food; continue to enhance and refine FDA’s import screening and entry review processes; optimize use of physical examination and sampling of imported food; strategically utilize import alerts and import certifications; improve testing methodologies and tools used to determine admissibility of food offered for import; maximize the benefit to border surveillance from state and other partnerships; maximize effectiveness of FDA response to an event involving an imported food; enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of imported food safety recalls; use information-sharing opportunities to prepare for and respond to the entry of unsafe imported food; optimize resource allocation by developing a comprehensive global inventory of food facilities and farms and assessing the cumulative oversight applied to the global inventory; and ensure effectiveness of import activities through performance assessment and continuous improvement.