Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 10/23/19

The agency this week did something it hasn't done in a while: It called together foodmakers, retailers, consumer advocates and consultants for a high-level, big picture meeting on the future of food safety.

The at-capacity confab held in Rockville, Md., on Monday is part of a broader initiative underway at the FDA called "a New Era of Smarter Food Safety." The details are still TBD, but agency leaders plan to release a "blueprint" with "critical steps to protect public health and keep pace with the ever-changing global food supply chain" in early 2020.

"At the end of the day, what we want to do is bend the foodborne illness curve because as you know it's been flat," Frank Yiannas, the FDA's deputy commissioner for Food Policy and Response, told POLITICO on the sidelines of the event.
Post-FSMA: For the better part of the last decade, much of the FDA's food safety focus has been through the lens of implementing the Food Safety Modernization Act, a sweeping 2011 law that Congress put together after a series of foodborne illness outbreaks, from spinach to peanut butter. The meeting this week was about what's next.

FDA is now seeking input on four main topics: Tech-enabled traceability and foodborne outbreak response; smarter tools and approaches for prevention; new business models and retail modernization; and food safety culture. (Read about these topics in depth here.) There's a public docket for comments, which is open until Nov. 20.

But what, exactly, is FDA cooking up? There's plenty of chatter within the food sector about what the agency envisions — especially in a decidedly deregulatory administration. Yiannas acknowledged that some are "a little nervous" about the agency's food safety initiative and where it might be headed. "I get asked this question a lot," he said. "We're not necessarily looking for a lot of new authorities to do what we have to do."

The FSMA traceability slow roll: Yiannas mentioned the agency is still working on implementing Section 204 of FSMA, a long-delayed piece that calls on the FDA to designate a list of "high-risk" foods and come up with additional traceability requirements for them. After a drawn out lawsuit from the Center for Food Safety, the agency last summer agreed to release a proposed rule by September 2020 and a final rule by November 2022.

"We're going to meet our legal mandate," Yiannas said, adding: "But we know that there's people rumbling that say 'well maybe there needs to be more comprehensive traceability rule.'"

On your radar: In addition to the blueprint the FDA is expected to release in 2020, keep an eye out for news on its ongoing pilot to use machine learning to improve oversight of food at ports of entry. Yiannas told POLITICO that the initial reports have been "very promising."