The core messages of the Five Keys to Safer Food are: (1) keep clean; (2) separate raw and cooked; (3) cook thoroughly; (4) keep food at safe temperatures; and (5) use safe water and raw materials.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for ensuring that domestic and imported food products are safe, sanitary, nutritious, wholesome and properly labeled. The primary statutes governing FDA's activities are the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) and the Public Health Services Act.
Four Steps to Food Safety: Clean, Separate, Cook, Chill.
A FSMS is a systematic approach to controlling food safety hazards within a food business in order to ensure that food is safe to eat. ... All businesses are required to put in place, implement and maintain a FSMS based on the principles of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP).
Global Food Safety System
Today’s global economy and threats of terrorism require that we take a new look at how we ensure a safe food supply in the United States. Our food supply could provide a vulnerable point for intentional acts of terrorism. However, because we source food products from all corners of the globe, we also increase our vulnerability to pathogens, contaminants, adulterants, diseases and a myriad of food quality issues. The U.S. is well-positioned to address these threats by improving the way that federal, state and local food protection agencies work together. The answer is an efficient and effective, integrated, seamless food safety system. Such a system leverages resources that already exist at all levels of government, it clearly defines roles and responsibilities, it allows for maximum information flow between government agencies, it recognizes and accredits the expertise of all parties, and it results in higher degree of uniformity and protection across the nation’s food safety programs.
4.3 Roles & Responsibilities
Our current food safety regulatory system is the shared responsibility of local, state and federal partners. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for ensuring that domestic and imported food products are safe, sanitary, nutritious, wholesome and properly labeled. The primary statutes governing FDA’s activities are the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) and the Public Health Services Act. The FDA establishes regulatory requirements and guidance for assuring that food is safe and not adulterated. State, local and county public health and agriculture departments play a major role in helping FDA carry out these responsibilities by conducting state inspections of food establishments, laboratory analyses of foods, and by taking enforcement action when violations result in unacceptable risk to the public. FDA works with states to set safety standards for food establishments and commodities, and evaluates the states’ performance in upholding such standards as well as any federal standards that may apply.
While FDA has primary authority in the food safety network, there is an entire system of complementary state and local laws working in harmony to protect our national food supply. Because all problems exist locally first, states often act as sentinels for emerging issues and have the ability to rapidly respond, often before such issues rise to the level of national concern, and thus before FDA takes action.
To support FDA‘s statutory authority, state agencies are primarily responsible for the actual inspections, enforcement, training, and carrying out a wide range of other food safety regulatory activities. For example, FDA contracts with states to monitor medicated animal feeds and to investigate incidents of pesticide or drug residues in foods. Approximately 80 percent of food safety inspections in the United States are completed at the state and local level.
These numbers dwarf the activities of our federal partners and demonstrate a real commitment to food safety at the state and local level. States for the most part have greater regulatory authority than FDA, including license revocation, detention (embargo) authority, and administrative penalties. This highly-integrated system has resulted in a more effective and efficient regulatory process than FDA could achieve alone. We use our resources to the utmost in our efforts against food-borne illness, food adulteration, and intentional contamination of our food supply.
