September 9, 2021 - As Consumers Order More Meals and Groceries Online, FDA Plans Public Meeting to Address Food Safety Risks. On Oct. 19-21, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will meet with members of the food industry, regulatory counterparts at all levels of government, consumers, and others to enhance our understanding of how human and animal foods are sold through e-commerce business models and to identify ways to control potential food safety risks. There is also an opportunity to comment through the Federal Register. The FDA will use the information received to decide on what actions may be needed to further protect consumers. For more information on this New Era of Smarter Food Safety initiative, click here.
On Thursday, April 29, 2021, FDA is launching the first in a new quarterly podcast series that focuses on the development and use of new technologies to strengthen the ability of FDA, regulated industry, and others to accelerate prevention, speed outbreak response, and more swiftly adapt to crises that could affect the human and animal food supply.
Hosted by the Iowa Food Safety and Protection Task Force
March 18, 2021 at 2:00pm - 3:00 pm ET (1:00pm - 2:00pm CT and 11:00am - 12:00pm PT)
Food Protection Task Forces best practices document has been posted to the AFDO Food Protection Program Portal.
With guest presenters FDA Deputy Commissioner Frank Yannis and AFDO Director of Communications, Brooke Benschoter
September 29, 2020 at 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm Eastern Time.
The second World Food Safety Day (WFSD) will be celebrated on 7 June 2020 to draw attention and inspire action to help prevent, detect and manage foodborne risks, contributing to food security, human health, economic prosperity, agriculture, market access, tourism and sustainable development.
Following the success of the first celebration in 2019, this year again WFSD reinforces the call to strengthen commitment to scale up food safety made by the Addis Ababa Conference and the Geneva Forum in 2019 under the umbrella of “The Future of Food Safety”. WHO, in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is pleased to facilitate Member States efforts to celebrate the World Food Safety Day.
Under the theme “Food safety, everyone’s business”, the action oriented campaign will promote global food safety awareness and call upon countries and decision makers, the private sector, civil society, UN organizations and the general public to take action.
Food safety is a shared responsibility between governments, producers and consumers. Everybody has a role to play from farm to table to ensure the food we consume is safe and will not cause damages to our health. Through the World Food Safety Day, WHO pursues its efforts to mainstream food safety in the public agenda and reduce the burden of foodborne diseases globally.
Key facts
Resources below:
https://www.who.int/news-room/campaigns/world-food-safety-day/2020
http://www.fao.org/fao-who-codexalimentarius/world-food-safety-day/about/en/
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictions on in-store dining, restaurants and restaurant suppliers may have surplus food that they cannot use and are looking for ways to repurpose their inventory. The preferred option is to use this food as human food and FDA has provided some regulatory flexibility for that redistribution. Another option is to send the unused food for use as animal food. Unused restaurant and grocery store food is commonly repurposed as animal food and is a valuable way to re-use food in a way that limits the impact on the environment.
If you can’t redistribute the unused food for human food use, FDA has developed a new Fact Sheet on how to safely distribute it for animal food use during COVID-19.
In collaboration with Alexandra Jakab from the Vermont Specialty Food Association and Brady O'Brien from the Vermont Retail & Grocers Association, we recorded the free webinar What You Need to Know About COVID-19. The link to the recorded webinar is: http://go.uvm.edu/covid.
In this webinar, we present some basic information about the virus (SARS-CoV-2), the disease (COVID-19), and we respond to some of the questions we have received about COVID-19 in the context of the daily activities of food manufacturer/food handlers. We also provide some online resources.
The Vermont Specialty Food Association has compiled the Coronavirus Resource Guide webpage, which is available at https://vtspecialtyfoods.org/coronavirus-resource-guide. Please visit this page if you have questions or would like to find more information about COVID-19.
FDA Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Briefing for Foods Stakeholders
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will host a stakeholder call on Wednesday, March 18th at 3:45 p.m. ET to discuss food safety and food supply questions related to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). FDA will provide an overview of current activities, respond to stakeholders’ concerns identified in recent days, and highlight important FDA resources in response to COVID-19 pandemic. For call information click here.
FDA Rapid Response Team (RRT) Program shares COVID 19 resources available to food safety stakeholders. Resources available here.