The following announcement is from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA):
A new section of the FDA Data Dashboard has been launched to help importers and manufacturers/processors meet supply-chain requirements under the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) by helping them more easily find compliance and enforcement information related to specific firms. Three of the FSMA rules contain supply-chain requirements: the Foreign Supplier Verification Programs rule, the Preventive Controls for Human Food rule, and Preventive Controls for Animal Food rule.
The Foreign Supplier Verification Programs rule requires importers to perform risk-based activities to verify that their suppliers are meeting applicable U.S. food safety standards. One such activity is an evaluation of a supplier’s performance and the risk associated with the food, a process that includes evaluating a supplier’s compliance with FDA regulations such as whether the supplier is subject to an FDA warning letter, import alert, or other FDA compliance action related to food safety. The Preventive Controls rules require manufacturers/processors to perform supplier approval if the ingredient supplied contains a hazard requiring a supply-chain applied control. Supplier approval includes consideration of the supplier’s compliance with food safety laws and regulations.
To assist with the evaluation process, FDA created a Supplier Evaluation Resources page to help importers and manufacturers/processors find relevant compliance and enforcement information for their suppliers, but that page required them to search multiple data bases.
The FDA has improved the Supplier Evaluation Resources page, which is now available as a new section in FDA’s Data Dashboard. The Data Dashboard brings all the information from the Supplier Evaluation Resource page together, allowing importers and manufacturers/processors to search multiple data bases at the same time. The dashboard can be used to find information regarding warning letters, import refusal, import alerts, and other firm-specific information with one search.
The FDA Data Dashboard was launched in 2014 to provide stakeholders with information on FDA’s compliance, inspection, and recall activities in an easy-to-read graphical format. The expansion of this platform to make it easier to search for purposes of fulfilling supply-chain requirements under the FSMA rules is one way FDA is working to help industry comply with the new food safety standards.
For more information about the Data Dashboard or any of the FSMA rules, see FDA.gov.
