Recently the U.S. Food and Drug Administration released a proposed rule to establish additional traceability recordkeeping requirements for certain foods. The rule, referred to as the Food Traceability proposed rule, is a key component of the FDA’s New Era of Smarter Food Safety Blueprint and would implement Section 204(d) of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). To assist stakeholders in understanding this new proposal, the FDA is making a number of additional resources available.

The first resource is a tool designed to allow users to explore the results of the Risk-Ranking Model for Food Tracing used in the development of the Food Traceability List. In the tool users can learn more about the methods and criteria used to score commodity-hazard pairs, and the results of that scoring which was used to determine which foods to include on the Food Traceability List (FTL).

The FDA has also released a pre-recorded webinar featuring Deputy Commissioner for Food Policy and Response Frank Yiannas, and Angela Fields, a traceability subject matter expert with FDA’s Coordinated Outbreak Response and Evaluation Network. During the presentation they discuss the benefits of the proposed rule, who would be subject to the rule, what the proposed key requirements are, exemptions and more.

In addition, the FDA has also made a number of other materials available including a “who is subject to the rule?” flowchart and a key terms glossary.

The FDA will be holding a series of virtual public meetings to discuss the proposed rule on November 6th, 18th and December 2nd. We encourage those interested in attending to visit the meeting page to learn more information and to register.

For more information about the proposed rule: