Industry body commends collaborative process involving over 170 contributors across eight working groups, reiterating commitment to enhancing produce safety from farm to fork
The International Fresh Produce Association (IFPA) has commented on the release of the Reagan-Udall Foundation’s report, ’Roadmap to Produce Safety: A Conceptual Framework’.
The Association has shared its support of the report, emphasising its appreciation for a collaborative approach and reiterating its call for adequate funding and future engagement with stakeholders.
“IFPA recognised the opportunity to represent our members in many of the working groups,” said chief science officer at IFPA, Max Teplitski.
“We believe that such collaborative approach is fundamental in not only setting the direction but also committing to the shared responsibility to follow the roadmap to enhance produce safety from farm to fork.”
IFPA also recognised the FDA’s support and investment in the Produce Safety Dialogue process that informed the report.
The process included over 170 people who contributed to eight different working groups.
This investment reflected the sentiment from both the participants and the FDA that ongoing collaboration and engagement across industry and regulatory groups will be critical to achieve measurable industry-wide impacts, the association said.
“While we stand ready to partner with our colleagues in industry and the FDA,” said Teplitski, “we also continue to advocate for the need to focus on risk-based and risk-appropriate approaches to food safety, investment into the development of detection tools and protocols that are robust and reproducible, using meaningful datasets to drive action plans, and for adequate allocation of federal and state resources to ensure the success of this collaboration.”
In addition to this advocacy work, IFPA said it will continue to inform industry members on opportunities to contribute to these collective efforts to improve produce safety and increase consumer confidence.
