IN THE future, producers of fruits and vegetables and their products will be required to identify where any potential hazards can occur, establish control points, monitor how well their systems work and fix problems when they occur.

This is according to Juliana Almeida, a Representative of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) who spoke at a workshop organised by the Barbados Manufacturers’ Association (BMA) on the “New Requirements and Opportunities to Export Fruit and Vegetables to the USA” held recently at BMA headquarters.

Speaking on “New Requirements to Export to the US: Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Food Safety Modernisation Act,” she said that these requirements which are part of the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HAACP), is already a requirement for juices and seafood, will be enacted to protect Americans from falling victim to food borne illnesses which account for approximately 48 million getting sick every year, 128 000 being hospitalised and 3 000 deaths. Infants, young children, older persons, pregnant women and people on chemotherapy are especially vulnerable.

Since 15 per cent of the food supply for the United States is imported and the food supply processes are getting more high-tech and complex, new hazards not seen before are emerging.

This new requirement will enhance the accountability of the producers so that they have to keep records on everything that they do.

Another requirement that producers have to comply with is for their food processing facility to be inspected by approved authorities. “High-risk domestic facilities must be inspected within five years of enactment and no less than every three years thereafter. Within one year of enactment, the law directs FDA to inspect at least 600 foreign facilities and double those inspections every year for the next five years”.

One of their new tools is that they would be allowed to recall a product after the producer fails to do this when the FDA requires him/her to do this because his/her product has been found to be unsafe.

They would also have the “Expanded administrative detention, which is a more flexible standard for administratively detaining products that are potentially in violation of the law,” stated Almeida.

The FDA can also suspend the registration of a facility if it has been determined that the food poses a serious health hazard that can lead to illness and/or death, said Almeida.

She added that it also allows for “third party laboratory testing, where certain food testing should be carried out by accredited laboratories and FDA should establish a program for laboratory accreditation to ensure that US food testing laboratories meet high-quality standards”.

The system also permits for the FDA to trace and track any both domestic and imported foods and have access to expanded records for food processing and related issues, which the producers must keep, stated Almeida.