On June 9, 2014, PMA submitted comments to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in response to the Agency's Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) which requested comments regarding implementation of Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) mandated Reportable Food Registry Consumer Notification provisions. FSMA requires that in the future, businesses provide “consumer-oriented’’ information about reportable foods so as to enable consumers to accurately identify foods that may pose a health risk. Grocery store chains with 15 or more stores that sell affected foods would be required to prominently and promptly display a one page consumer notification for 14 days when notified by the FDA. Fruits and vegetables that are raw agricultural commodities are excluded from these FSMA consumer reporting provisions.
PMA's provided comments regarding:
creation of redundancies between the proposed FDA RFR Consumer Notification and the currently established FDA Recall Program.
the need for the food industry to be able to work with one office at FDA regarding a “reportable recalled food product”, as dealing with multiple FDA offices during a potential public health emergency would be time consuming, inefficient and potentially place public health in jeopardy by slowed or uncoordinated response.
the potential for consumer confusion, in that, consumers will now have to understand and be able to differentiate a “recalled food” versus a “reportable food”.
the need for flexibility in the means by which food producers, distributors and retailers notify consumers about a "recalled food" or "reportable food."
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