A group of universities has developed a free, four-hour training course to help small- and medium-sized businesses comply with FDA's Final Food Traceability Rule (FSMA 204).
In March 2025, FDA announced its intent to extend the deadline for its Food Traceability Final Rule, under Section 204(d) of the Food Safety Modernization Act, by 30 months. FDA says the extension will allow affected companies more time for building the necessary systems and effecting complete coordination across the supply chain in order to implement the final rule's requirements. However, this is no reason to wait on traceability!
The extension of the compliance date for FDA's Food Traceability Final Rule will allow time for the refinement of compliance requirements and the development of further guidance
This article looks at what the FSMA 204/traceability requirements mean for temperature-controlled food storage and transportation, as well as processes and technologies that can support traceability throughout the fresh and frozen food supply chains.
The opening workshop of the 2025 Food Safety Summit focused on "Traceability Next Steps: Supply Chain Implementation" and included interactive traceability exercises to help attendees understand the requirements of FSMA 204.
Traceability means that one can identify not only the source of the ingredients, but also a whole set of inputs—the entire history of what went into making the product