FSMA Begins — Reactions And Support From GFSI Benchmarked Schemes

By John Kukoly, Director, BRC Americas

FSMA, for some, is now a regulatory compliance issue. For others, it comes into effect over the next couple of years. The intention of this article is to identify current responses GFSI and benchmarked schemes (BRC, FSSC 22000 and SQF) have put into place and to support companies in meeting the various requirements within the Food Safety Modernization Act.

First, let’s take a look at FSMA itself. For most, either the Produce Safety Rules or Preventative Controls apply. Basically, farming and post-farm activities is how these two split up. I will only focus on post-farm, as the produce safety rules are fairly straightforward.

One has to remember, in addition to the preventative controls, several other aspects of FSMA come into play in various forms and at various times. For importers of record and foreign firms, the Foreign Supplier Verification Program (FSVP) comes into play. Sanitary transport impacts anyone transporting food and ingredients (storage operations come under Preventative Controls), and Intentional Adulteration (a mixture of food defense and food fraud) also needs attention paid. To date, since it is the first section to come into play, most attention has been paid to Preventative Controls… but, just don’t forget about the others.