Kharla Andreina Segovia, Academic Deputy Director of Bureau Veritas University Center. Director of the Master's Degree in Food Safety Management . PhD in Advanced Food Studies from the University of Seville.
In September 2015, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) of the United States published the final version of the section of the FSMA (Food Safety Modernization Act) regarding preventive controls for human food. This Act is mandatory for all food companies wishing to export their products to this country.
The United States ranks sixth in importance as a destination for Spanish food exports, and first place if we only consider countries outside the European Union. This indicates the great importance of knowledge and the correct application of this Law in many of our food companies. But what real implications does compliance with the FSMA Law have for a business owner in this sector?
Until the enactment of this Act, if a Spanish company instagram data wanted to export its products to the United States, it had to deal with relatively simple procedures that only included registering with the FDA in accordance with the Bioterrorism Act published in 2002 and adapting its labelling to comply with current American legislation. However, from now on, there are many and very detailed requirements demanded within the framework of FSMA.
The most important part of these requirements is focused on the preventive approach, risk analysis and food safety. To this end, the Law requires the implementation of certain mandatory preventive controls in the production process of the company that wishes to introduce its products to the American market. In this way, it avoids the reactive approaches that American legislation presented until the promulgation of FSMA. This is precisely where the concern of business owners in the sector lies, who ask themselves: what changes should I make in my processes? What modifications should I make to my management systems or HACCP plans? What differences do the FSMA requirements have with respect to current European legislation?
For our peace of mind, in Europe it is a legislative requirement to have an HACCP system implemented in any industry in the food sector and this is already a big step. Many of the elements that these companies already have in place are part of what is requested in FSMA, with the main difference that there will be various specific and more exhaustive preventive controls, such as the case of allergen management and the supply chain. The latter represents the most important change in this Law, since, until its enactment, exporting companies only had to worry about obtaining their registration with the FDA, but they did not have to have any specific requirements with their suppliers. With the entry into force of FSMA, an exporting company must verify that all the entities involved in the manufacture of the final product comply with said legislation.
In the case of industries that have some GFSI certification, the ground is much more fertile. However, it is very important that the company is trained and knows the specific differences that exist between the FSMA requirements and the standards they have implemented. In this sense, for companies that are certified under standards such as BRC or IFS, specific modules and manuals have been published for the correct implementation of the FSMA requirements. In these manuals, although it is clear that they are based on a very good base, more restrictive FSMA requirements can be observed in aspects such as validations and corrective actions of the system.