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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced the fiscal year (FY) 2024 user fee rates for the Voluntary Qualified Importer Program (VQIP) and the Accredited Third-Party Certification Program (TPP). Both are programs under FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) recently updated its list of qualified presumption of safety (QPS) -recommended microbiological agents intentionally added to food or feed. QPS is a regularly updated generic pre-valuation of the safety of microorganisms based on an assessment of published data for each agent.

In this episode of Food Safety Matters, we are joined by Sarah Gallo, Vice President of Product Policy at the Consumer Brands Association (CBA). Sarah outlines CBA’s efforts to push for modernization at FDA with regard to inspections, recalls, labeling guidance development, and chemicals management in food packaging. She also shares CBA’s perspective on the proposed reorganization of FDA’s Human Foods Program. Also featured is a conversation with Dr. Emilio Esteban, Under Secretary for Food Safety at the USDA's Office of Food Safety, that was recorded at IAFP 2023 in Toronto, Canada.

A recent study exploring the use of a digital technologies for retail food safety inspections in the EU has revealed existing opportunities to improve inspection consistency through digitalization, as well as the barriers that exist to adopting a digital environment.

In support of FDA's Closer to Zero initiative, researchers have conducted a risk assessment that estimates the U.S. population’s dietary exposure to cadmium. The study found children aged 6–24 months and 24–60 months to be the populations most highly exposed to cadmium, with concerning levels of exposure when compared to guidelines set by regulatory agencies.

Through a voluntary pilot program, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found four major third-party industry auditing standards for food safety to be in alignment with both the Preventive Controls for Human Foods Rule and the Produce Safety Rule, which are FDA regulations that were issued as part of Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) implementation.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has reissued two temporary guidances originally published during the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) for certain regulatory requirements that involve onsite visits abroad under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).  

Now available is the 120 Day Food and Agriculture Interim Risk Review, which provides a review of critical and emergent risks to the U.S. food and agriculture sector, and will help inform the Federal Risk Mitigation Strategy, as outlined in the National Security Memorandum-16 (NSM-16).

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA’s APHIS) has announced 12 awards totaling more than $3.2 million in cooperative agreement funding to create antimicrobial resistance (AMR) dashboards. AMR is a crucial threat to food safety and global public health that is aggravated by the use of antimicrobials in food animal agriculture.

The Dutch government has partnered with the cultivated meat industry to develop a code of practice for the facilitation of taste tests for cell-cultured meat and seafood products prior to receiving market approval.