The Northwest Horticultural Council (NHC) represents the growers, packers, and shippers of apples, pears, and cherries in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington on federal and international policy and regulatory issues. We support the goal of providing regulators with the tools they need to quickly trace contaminated foods through the supply chain, to achieve the equally important purposes of removing potentially dangerous products from the food supply, and identifying the point and cause of contamination to inform future efforts to reduce foodborne illness. While the whole apples, pears, and cherries that our growers produce are not currently on the Food Traceability List (FTL) published in this proposal, we believe that the final regulation will likely impact producers of food not on the FTL through pressure from buyers to adopt the same standards. Regardless, we believe that any regulation in this area should be structured in a way that addresses the need for FDA to trace contaminated food back to its source in a manner that is both focused on addressing the deficiencies in current practices and workable for the food industry as a whole. Our comments, which are attached, reflect this approach from the perspective of the Pacific Northwest tree fruit industry. In addition, the NHC is a member of the United Fresh Produce Association (UFPA) and is supportive of the comments submitted by UFPA under this docket.
Designation of High-Risk Foods for Tracing; Request for Comments and for Scientific Data and Information
Activity
Northwest Horticultural Council filed 1 comment on this docket between Mar 3, 2021 and Mar 3, 2021. 5 other organizations filed here. The comment window closed 13d ago.
What Northwest Horticultural Council filed (1)
Abstract
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA, the Agency, or we) is proposing to establish additional traceability recordkeeping requirements for persons that manufacture, process, pack, or hold foods the Agency has designated for inclusion on the Food Traceability List. The proposed rule would require these entities to establish and maintain records containing information on critical tracking events in the supply chain for these designated foods, such as growing, shipping, receiving, creating, and transforming the foods. The proposed requirements are intended to help the Agency rapidly and effectively identify recipients of foods to prevent or mitigate foodborne illness outbreaks and address credible threats of serious adverse health consequences or death resulting from foods being adulterated or misbranded. We are issuing this proposed rule in accordance with the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).
View on regulations.gov →Co-filers (5)
See everyone who commented →- Northwest Horticultural CouncilTHIS ORG1 filing · confidence 97%
- American Frozen Food Institutetrade assoc.2 filings · confidence 97%
- National Retail Federationtrade assoc.2 filings · confidence 97%
- American Farm Bureau Federationtrade assoc.1 filing · confidence 97%
- International Dairy Foods Associationtrade assoc.1 filing · confidence 97%
- National Milk Producers Federationtrade assoc.1 filing · confidence 97%