The Foreign Supplier Verification Program (FSVP) is the longest, most complex, and arguably most confusing of the seven rules. It places liability on importers for the safety of the food they purchase from foreign suppliers. “Life has changed for food importers, that’s for sure,” says McEntire. “It’s the most complicated, nuanced rule; it’s also pretty prescriptive.”
She notes that compliance will likely be easier for importers who are also grower-shippers and familiar with food safety protocols, as opposed to companies involved only in facilitating imports, which have never had legal responsibility for food safety until now.
Bernard agrees with McEntire. “The biggest impact will be on importers that don’t have farms, the one- or two-person operations with a minimum of food safety training,” he says. Importers must “now have a competent person, on site, review all food safety operations.” Some importers, he notes, “may have had food safety people outside of the country, but that doesn’t work under FSMA.”
Who Must Comply
At its core, the regulation requires importers to verify all goods they bring into the U.S. market are safe and consistent with the provisions of the Preventive Controls or Produce Safety rules, with separate FSVPs for each supplier.
Importers must develop and maintain a process for verifying, throughout the whole growing, manufacturing, and transportation process, that the food is safe and correctly labeled, identifying any risks or hazards through experience, historical data, audits, scientific reports, sample testing, or other information. They must also have a plan for addressing any problems.
“You have to look at the companies’ history, examine their processes, or evaluate the food itself to make sure they’re doing everything properly,” McEntire stresses, and a further complication is that the growers and processors who must follow the rules may not even be direct suppliers of the importer.
One of the first steps in complying with FSVP is for each importer to provide the name, email address, and unique facility identifier to the FDA for each line entry of food product offered for importation in to the United States, according to Ana Ramos, licensed customs broker at The Perishable Specialist, Inc., a Miami-based company that clears cargo at all major U.S. ports.
The Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS), assigned and managed by Dun & Bradstreet, is FDA-recognized for use with FSVP. Getting a free DUNS number prior to a company’s compliance date is encouraged, since the number allows the FDA to accurately identify FSVP importers as it implements, monitors compliance with, and enforces FSVP. Importers must comply with this part of the rule even when handling commodities that are exempt under FSMA, such as the list of produce items that are rarely, if ever, consumed raw.
