Food and beverages are considered an area of high importance for FDA
regulation. This is natural, because while food is the most essential
nutrient needed for the human body; it also comes with its own risks and
drawbacks, if prepared or handled improperly. Food is universal in its
consumption, and man has living on food from times immemorial.
Because of the enormous potential food has for causing diseases if
cooked or stored or transported wrongly, regulation for food has become
absolutely essential. These regulations are certainly the toughest to not only
formulate, but to also implement, because food is so prevalent and the chances
of contamination are so high and widespread that care has to be taken to ensure
that the regulations are implemented quite literally till the last morsel.
Most regulatory bodies pair beverages with food
regulations because of the similarity in their natures, and also because
they are usually seen as being inseparable from each other. That said, the major
challenge in enforcing food and beverage regulations is that we live in a
highly globalized world today. While production of food has locations; its
consumption has almost none. Food can be produced in one part of the world,
could be stored in another, and consumed in yet another.
It is not unrealistic or hyperbolic to stretch this analogy and
say that food that is produced in one continent could pass through another
continent or two, and get consumed in yet another. This being the nature of
food and beverages, it is all the more imperative to regulate these. The very
need to regulate brings challenges and difficulties, for the reasons just
explained.
A bevy of
food and beverage regulations
Yet, regulatory bodies do not get daunted or give up on food and
beverages regulations. It makes no sense to formulate a general, blanket set of
regulations for the food and beverages industries and expect the entire world
to comply with a globally created set of regulations. There are many food and
beverages regulations that are in place in different parts of the world. Several
agencies such as the UN, the FDA, the ISO and the Food and Agricultural
Organization (FAO) have regulations for food and beverages. Understandably,
these regulations are global in nature.
Likewise, there are national, regional and local regulations
concerning food and beverages within nearly all the countries of the world. And
then, there are also common food and beverages that apply to blocs and groupings
such as the European Union (EU). These are framed keeping in mind the unique
situations and circumstances of the different populaces of the word. This
explains the diversity of food and beverages regulations, as well as the
difficulty in enforcing these on a global or regional or even domestic scale.
Regulations meant to ensure the safety of food and beverages in
North America can never be the same as those in Africa. While in advanced
countries and regions of the world, the emphasis is on preventing contamination
and what is called bioterrorism, which will be discussed later; the priority
for developing countries could be more basic, like ensuring supply of water for
basic needs such as drinking and sanitation and making sure that wherever and
whenever available, this supply meets minimum hygiene requirements.
The FDA’s regulations
on food and beverages
The FDA has many regulations on food and beverages. Code of
Federal Regulations (CFR), Title 21 is a complete list of regulatory guidelines
this regulatory body has put in place for ensuring the quality of food
throughout the food chain. CFR 21 has guidelines on a whole host of activities
pertaining to food in all its elements, such as display of food content and
nutritional information on the packet, the nature and proportion of the
ingredients, the name and location of the manufacturer, calorie content of the
food, tendency of the food made by a particular manufacturer to cause or be an
agent for the cause of diseases and conditions such as diabetes, cancer,
hypertension or heart disease, and so on, as well as information about the
presence of allergens in the food.
The FDA also has very elaborate instructions relating to the food
and beverage industry, such as how to handle recalls, outbreaks and
emergencies, how to prevent foodborne diseases, and so on. In addition, the FDA
also has a number of regulations that relate to Good
Manufacturing Practices (GMPs), how to report adverse events, what a food
or beverage manufacturing facility should do to prevent being issued a 483 by
the FDA, and what to do when it is issued one.
Bioterrorism
On top of all these, the FDA has also taken highly detailed steps
in relation to bioterrorism.
Bioterrorism is a form of attack on food and beverages by the disease-causing
agents found freely in nature, such as viruses, bacteria or other toxins. This
is done by terrorists to deliberately cause harm to humans through the food
they consume. In order to prevent this, the federal government formulated the Public
Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act in 2002.
Called the Bioterrorism Act in short, this legislation directs and
authorizes the FDA to take urgent and effective steps to protect the public
from threats arising out of bioterrorism throughout the food chain in the US.
It seeks to assure public safety by preventing bioterrorism by taking a number
of steps in this direction. One of these is the mandatory registration of
certain kinds of facilities with the FDA. This is done to help the FDA zero in
on the possible site of a bioterror attack, should one happen. Dietary
supplements, infant food formulae, beverages, fruits and vegetables and foods
of almost all types come under the classification of facilities that need to be
registered with the FDA.
The HACCP
Another mechanism meant for ensuring the safety of food and
beverages is the Hazard
Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP), a systematic approach that
the US FDA and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) require from
manufacturers and suppliers of food and beverages in the country. Largely aimed
at controlling the spread of bioterrorism through protection of products from
the meat and fish industries; HACCP is an important program of the federal
government in ensuring that food contamination can be contained at any stage of
the food chain. HACCP can be implemented along with standards such as the
generalized ISO 22000 and programs of The Food Safety and Inspection Service
(FSIS), such as The Poultry Products Inspection Act, Federal Meat Inspection
Act, some parts of the Agricultural Marketing Act, The Humane Slaughter Act,
and The Egg Products Inspection Act. As a rule, HACCP provisions relating to
meat are regulated by the USDA, while those relating to juices and seafood are regulated
by the FDA.
NetZealous
LLC’s trainings on food related legislations
The need for professional trainings in the areas of food
safety is absolutely essential, when one takes the complete picture of the
food and beverages manufacturing, supply and consumption chain across the
globe. In the US, the standards set out for these industries are extremely
high. So, industries in the food and beverages business have to ensure that
they meet the very high standards of regulatory requirements set out by the FDA
and other agencies.
It is in areas like this that a professional trainings provider of
repute, such as NetZealous LLC can be of great value to organizations in the
food and beverages industries that are required to meet regulatory
requirements. NetZealous LLC has experts from around the world who have worked
extensively with the FDA-regulated industries. Their experience enables them to
help regulatory professionals and industries comply with regulatory
requirements.
NetZealous LLC’s experts have solid experience in handling issues
relating to foods and beverages, such as:
o
HACCP
o
The seven principles of HACCP
o
Monitoring and documenting critical control points
o
Sanitation, allergens, pest control
o
ISO 22000
o
Bioterrorism Act
o
Food processing
o
Food marketing
