Evaluating your obligations for employee training according to the Food Safety Modernization Act

The signing of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) into law in 2011 elevated the FDA into a significantly higher, international operational role to implement a new, prevention-oriented, systems-wide approaches to food safety for the entire spectrum of non-meat foods. After decades of failed regulatory attempts to “inspect food safety into” the nation's food supply, FSMA puts the responsibility for food safety where the liability resides, with the food producers and processors. FSMA has been called the most sweeping change in food safety in the past 70 years with the potential to significantly reduce the burden of foodborne illness while saving a potential billion dollars a year in associated health care costs. When fully implemented, FSMA legislation will depend on a risk-based food safety assessment to require food producers to control their environment and train their employees to minimize risk of food borne illness to their consumers. FDA has noted that between 1999 and 2003 more than 1/3 of all food recalls were related to ineffective employee training. There will be substantial benefits for companies who begin early to write and implement employee training programs because preventing foodborne illness is most effectively address at the local, plant level. In this new regulation the establishment of training programs for personnel and documentation of training are couched in the regulatory language of “shall” rather than the former “should”, meaning they are now required and civil and criminal penalties could be assessed if companies do not comply.