The fresh produce industries in Australia and New Zealand say they are hopeful that new rules governing the safety of food imports into the US, due to be announced later in the year, will not have a dramatic impact on exports to the country.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is currently revising its rules on produce safety and preventive controls under the much-debated Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which has already seen the introduction of proposed new rules on produce safety and preventive controls on food.
Speaking from the Center for Produce Safety at the University of California in Davis, PMA Australia-New Zealand chief executive Michael Worthington said it was important to keep in mind that so far only those two rules had been released and that the industry had until 16 May 2013 to review them and provide comment.
'The general consensus is that the Produce Safety Standards Rule is unlikely to cause much comment and would be adopted with minor adjustments only,” Worthington said. 'The Preventive Controls for Human Foods Rule may require further review, particularly around validation and verification data.'
Two other rules are yet to be proposed, covering imports and the third-party audits respectively.
Worthington said that it might still be some time before the full impact of the rules on the Australian and New Zealand fresh produce export trades was known.
'We are hoping that existing compliance systems already in use, such as GlobalGAP and NZGAP, would remain acceptable under the new FSMA rules, as the last thing our industries need are more costly compliance systems and audits,' he commented.
'However, it is too early to confirm that this is the case and it will be some months before it all becomes clear.'
PMA Global recently published a comprehensive guide to FSMA aimed at helping the global produce industry better understand the law as well as the proposed FDA regulations.
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