By David Fairfield
Senior Vice President, Feed
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently issued a report titled, “Resiliency Roadmap for FDA Inspectional Oversight,” outlining the agency’s inspectional activities during the COVID-19 pandemic and its plan for future inspections.
In March 2020, FDA announced that it was temporarily postponing all domestic and foreign routine surveillance facility inspections, while continuing mission-critical inspections when possible.
Beginning the week of July 20, 2020, FDA began to work toward resuming prioritized domestic inspections using its COVID-19 Advisory Rating system.
The report outlines inspections that the agency was unable to complete during the past year due to the pandemic, as well as the number of mission-critical inspections completed, such as inspections conducted in response to foodborne disease outbreaks or other food safety risks.
Highlights from the report related to animal food include:
- FDA investigators conducted 26 mission-critical animal food inspections.
- FDA investigators conducted 17 animal food inspections after resuming prioritized domestic inspections in July 2020. o FDA’s state partners conducted 1,295 animal food inspections on behalf of FDA.
- FDA conducted 1,183 remote Foreign Supplier Verification Program (FSVP) inspections (FDA’s FSVP rule provides FDA remote inspectional authority to evaluate compliance with the regulations).
— From the May 14 NGFA Newsletter
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