13 tips for FSMA compliance

Industry experts and a representative of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration offered tips to attendees of the American Feed Industry Association’s (AFIA) Purchasing and Ingredient Suppliers Conference for complying with the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).

FSMA guidelines will be a permanent fixtures for animal feed companies. | Bigstock | dizainstock
FSMA guidelines will be a permanent fixtures for animal feed companies. | Bigstock | dizainstock

Industry experts and a representative of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) offered tips to attendees of the American Feed Industry Association’s (AFIA) Purchasing and Ingredient Suppliers Conference for complying with the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).

Dr. Dan McChesney of the FDA, Jan Campbell of Purina Animal Nutrition and Steve Younker of Milk Specialties Global discussed their perspectives of the rules and what their organizations have done to ensure compliance and incorporate FSMA into their corporate culture.

The conference was held March 8-9 in Orlando, Florida, USA.

Here are some tips they shared:

  1. Keep doing what you are doing. Understand the rules and proceed with operations as normally as you can.
  2. Look at what you’re doing in your current good manufacturing practices, not just what you have to do to comply with the regulation.
  3. Remember the ultimate goal is to maintain safety of the food supply.
  4. Build FSMA programs into existing food safety and quality programs.
  5. Realize this is not just an activity, but a journey that doesn’t have a start date and an end date. It’s a continuous cycle of review and improve.
  6. It’s crucial to understand your internal programs vs. FSMA requirements.
  7. Be careful not to create more work in becoming compliant.
  8. Don’t allow analysis of the rules to impede progress at your company.
  9. Research FSMA rules and stay informed.
  10. Perform risk assessments to understand risks associated with your materials.
  11. Know your suppliers and use approved suppliers.
  12. Put a significant focus on, and devote resources to, training.
  13. Incorporate good practices into companywide culture.
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