Source:  POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 1/10/19

FDA officials are working to get routine high-risk food safety inspections back up and running. "We're taking steps to expand the scope of food safety surveillance inspections we're doing during the shutdown to make sure we continue inspecting high risk food facilities," Commissioner Scott Gottlieb wrote Wednesday in a Twitter thread.

Several commodities fall under FDA's high-risk category, including seafood, soft cheeses, fresh fruits and vegetables, spices, shell eggs, infant formula and medical foods.

"We should have the mechanisms in place next week," Gottlieb said via Twitter, regarding high-risk inspections. He noted FDA had stopped or delayed only a small number of the roughly 8,400 inspections the agency routinely conducts each year.

High-risk food facilities, by the numbers: FDA typically conducts about 160 food facility inspections per week, about a third of which are considered high risk, Gottlieb said. The Food Safety Modernization Act requires FDA to inspect high-risk food facilities at least once every three years. There are roughly 20,000 food facilities that are considered high-risk in the U.S.