Specialty Food Magazine

WINTER 2018

Specialty Food Magazine is the leading publication for retailers, manufacturers and foodservice professionals in the specialty food trade. It provides news, trends and business-building insights that help readers keep their businesses competitive.

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FALL 2017 article bug 119 Ron Tanner is vice president, philanthropy, government, and industry relations for the Specialty Food Association. What is the biggest threat to your business? Specialty food producers and suppliers weighed in about risks and challenges to their businesses for the 2017 "State of the Specialty Food Industry" report. Here are some common responses: Sound Off "Cash flow" "Lack of market awareness" "Minimum wage hikes" "New products being seriously delayed" "Cost of ingredients" "Not being able to find a co-packer so we can scale up" "Big distributors gobbling up the smaller ones" specialtyfood.com/stateindustry2017 Find more information at learning.specialtyfood.com under Food Safety. @ specialtyfood.com Digital records must be equivalent to paper records and have signatures equivalent to handwritten signatures. The system must: • Be authentic, accurate, and protected • Provide accurate and complete copies of records • Protect records for later retrieval • Limit access to authorized individuals • Provide a secure record audit trail • Be reviewed by a trained individual These records must be made available to FDA and other pub- lic health authorities within 24 hours when requested. Recordkeeping for FSVP Importers are required to prove that products they are bringing into the U.S. are as safe as food produced within the U.S. Records must be kept at the importer's place of business. The FDA will examine records there, not at the border. Importers must make sure that the facilities producing the food that they import are following the Preventive Controls for Human Food regulations required in FSMA. Foreign manufac- turers must have a Food Safety Plan put together by a "Qualified Individual" and the importer must have a "Qualified Individual" review that plan. That plan and the review of the plan must be documented and available for FDA review upon request. Records required for importers include: • The Food Safety Plan of their suppliers • Their review of that plan • The safety history of their suppliers These records can be original or digital. They do not need to be in English but must be translatable if requested by FDA. The records must be kept for two years, even if an importer stops doing business with a foreign supplier. Most of the recordkeeping requirements of FSMA make logi- cal business sense to protect your business and brand. You need to learn the regulations and to follow the rules. Editor's Note: The Food Safety Preventive Controls Alliance provided information for this article. If you are interested in their training cur- riculum approved by the FDA, please visit ifish.iit.edu/fspca 119 WINTER 2018

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