GLOBALG.A.P. alignment with the FDA Produce Safety Rule facilitates trade

Our Integrated Farm Assurance (IFA) standard v5.4-1-GFS for fruit and vegetables plus the Food Safety Modernisation Act (FSMA) Product Safety Rule (PSR) add-on version 1.3 was officially recognized earlier this month by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to be in alignment with the PSR. This means that producers in the United States and in countries outside the United States who export fruits and vegetables to the United States can now showcase their efforts to provide trustworthy, safe food by adopting our IFA standard plus the FSMA PSR add-on.

“FoodPLUS GmbH expects this new recognition to make food safety auditing more <br>efficient and to streamline supply chain operations among producers and US importers who rely on GLOBALG.A.P. farm assurance solutions,” said Managing Director Dr Elmé Coetzer-Boersma. “Foreign producers adopting IFA plus the FSMA PSR add-on will also be demonstrating their commitment to supplying trustworthy, safe food for export to the United States.” 

Roberta Anderson, President of GLOBALG.A.P. North America Inc., further underlined how this new alignment will help producers and importers satisfy regulatory requirements and facilitate trade. She said,

“We believe that the FSMA PSR add-on is valuable not just for importers but also for producers in the United States who are seeking a streamlined approach to meeting regulatory and market needs.”

Not the first time a government has recognized a GLOBALG.A.P. standard

This is not the first time that a GLOBALG.A.P. farm assurance standard has been recognised by a government oversight body. In late 2022, the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) officially recognized our IFA standard as a trusted farm assurance standard that reflects the Dutch government’s food safety objectives. With official government recognition, our solutions help producers to implement safer and more responsible faming practices. In addition, they also make trade more efficient by ensuring compliance with government rules under a single certification system.

Recognition of our standard scheme eases burden of government oversight

The United States is the world’s leading importer of fresh fruits and vegetables, bringing in produce from over 125 different countries. Buyers, importers, and receiving facilities in the United States often use third-party audits to assess product quality and safety and may make purchase agreements contingent on the results of these audits.

In October 2020, the FDA announced a voluntary pilot program to evaluate the alignment of third-party food safety standards with FSMA rules. The FDA designed this program to reduce redundancy and streamline auditing by recognizing private standard that satisfy the FDA’s Preventive Controls for Human Food and PSR requirements.

Since this initiative, stakeholders in the produce supply chain who handle produce sourced from local and international farms that are certified to officially recognized third-party solutions can now have confidence that their suppliers satisfy applicable FDA food safety rules.

This efficiency extends to government vigilance as well, as FDA investigators will have more reliable indicators of importers’ compliance with FSMA requirements based on private third-party audit results and can allocate oversight resources accordingly. 

How we achieved official recognition of alignment

In response to the FDA’s October 2020 announcement, we submitted our IFA standard v5.41-GFS plus the FSMA PSR add-on v1.2 to the pilot program, where it was then reviewed by an FDA subject matter expert in a side-by-side comparison with the PSR. We addressed the discrepancies identified in the expert’s review and published the resulting revisions in the FSMA PSR add-on v1.3. This updated version of the add-on became obligatory in December 2022.

Finally, on 17 July 2023, the FDA officially recognized IFA v5.4-1-GFS plus the FSMA PSR add-on v1.3 as aligned with the technical requirements of the PSR. You can find more details on the official FDA website.

“We are grateful to the National Technical Working Group USA and the global stakeholders that have shaped the development of the FSMA PSR add-on since 2016,” said Anderson.

Now with this official recognition, fruit and vegetable producers who produce in or export to the United States can become “FSMA-ready” by adopting our flagship IFA standard plus the FSMA PSR add-on. This benefit will prove especially useful to US producers, and producers in Mexico and Canada, who naturally conduct a high volume of trade with the United States.