Recap of Part 1—The Gray Regulatory Airspace of E-Commerce Food Business
As the rapidly evolving direct-to-consumer food business model continues to expand, the inherent risk to consumer health and safety conversely rises. In October 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) hosted the New Era of Smarter Food Safety Summit on E-commerce,1 wherein FDA called on regulators and stakeholders to comment on what, if any, regulations should be imposed on e-commerce food businesses. An impressive turnout of esteemed, tenured food industry experts, consumers, and professional organizations shared their collective and growing concerns around the lack of federal oversight of these operations, especially considering their high-risk nature and complex, undisclosed operations.