FDA Publishes First Guidance Documents on Food Defense

The FDA published the first of three announced guidance documents on June 19, 2018 for food defense. This release was less than one month after announcing they were “tantalizingly close” to releasing the first guidance at the 2018 Food Protection and Defense Institute conference. In the past, “tantalizingly close” has not been anywhere near soon, so I am happy for the FDA team that got this guidance done. The food defense rule for the prevention of intentional adulteration (IA) is the last of seven foundational rules of the Food Safety Modernization Act to be rolled out. If you are thinking “Whoa, I just figured out PCQI and my food safety plan,” then I suggest you start with the excellent FDA Final Rule Fact Sheets that summarize the FSMA rules and then go to the guidance documents.

Who needs to follow the Intentional Adulteration rule?
The FDA was very clear that the owner, operator or agent in charge is responsible.

The IA rule applies to the owner, operator, or agent in charge of a domestic or foreign food facility that manufactures/ processes, packs, or holds food for consumption in the United States.

Here are some specific details. Just like the other FSMA rules, FDA rolls out the enforcement of the rule based on three sizes of businesses:

Businesses with more than 500 employees must comply in July 2019 by following a written food defense plan. FDA allows great flexibility on how a food defense plan is written and implemented, while providing detailed guidance. The food defense plan is a program for a facility and does not include the farm. The facility does not consider transportation to their location or transportation from their location in the food defense plan.

$10,000,000 is not a typo! The IA rule has a different definition of very small from the Preventive Controls for Human Food rule, the Produce rule or the Foreign Supplier Verification Program rule. Any business with less than $10,000,000 in annual revenue is exempt from compliance, and the business does not have to submit documents annually to the FDA to qualify. The business does have to provide documentation of annual revenue in person to an FDA inspector upon request for review and confirmation of the size of the business. Why, you ask?

The Intentional Adulteration rule is meant to prevent wide scale harm to public health.

From the guidance: Acts intended to cause wide scale public health harm are associated with intent to cause significant human morbidity and mortality… acts of disgruntled employees, consumers, and competitors are generally intended to attack the reputation of a company, and EMA [i.e. economically motivated adulteration] is intended to obtain economic gain.

Note! Businesses whose sole operation is the storage of packaged food are exempt, except for the holding of liquid food in tanks. See the guidance IV. Exemptions B. Holding of Food.

Note! Once the food has been wrapped in its initial food-contact packaging, subsequent packaging and labeling of the individually-wrapped portions into packs or cases for sale is not included in the food defense plan.

What training is available now?
FREE training is available now. Ahead of the guidance document, online and free training was posted. The training was designed for line workers and their supervisors for food defense awareness. The best defense is a trained and informed workforce. At the end of the 20-minute session, a certificate is printed and added to the employee’s personnel file. Additional training will be rolled out over the next year from the Food Safety Preventive Controls Alliance and other organizations.

The first guidance from FDA has so much more information. Even if you are exempt from the rule, I encourage you to read over the guidance and provide the free training to your employees. The ConnectFood website has free resources, and the folks at ConnectFood are here to help! Contact us.

About the Author
Kathy Knutson, Ph.D.
Kathy Knutson Food Safety Consulting
Dr. Kathy Knutson works nationwide with food manufacturers on recall investigations, problem-solving, training, and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) compliance. After being trained in 2016 as a Lead Instructor with the FDA-recognized curriculum for Preventive Controls Qualified Individuals, she delivered over 20 workshops to industry. With over 35 years in microbiology and 15 years of full-time teaching, Dr. Knutson is passionate about training and is an effective communicator at all levels in an organization. She has taught and consulted with companies on laboratory methods, interpretation of lab results, quality assurance, sanitation, environmental monitoring, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs), Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) and the FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). As a life-long learner, Dr. Knutson is trained in prevention of intentional adulteration, a topic on the horizon for the food industry. Dr. Knutson is a contributing author at CannabisIndustryJournal.com. Dr. Knutson writes a food safety blog and contributes expert services to manufacturers through connectfood.com, an online site for writing HACCP and food safety plans. When Dr. Knutson is not traveling, she works from home in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where she lives with her husband, two sons, and an adorable Bernedoodle. Learn more about her at https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathyknutsonphd