In January of 2011, President Obama signed FSMA reform into law. The FDA’s website explains that the goal is to shift the focus from simply responding to contamination of food to actually preventing it, and this act gives the FDA the power to require prevention-based controls across the industry. The good news is that this reform applies to pet foods as well as human foods.
For the first time, importers have an explicit responsibility to verify that their foreign suppliers have adequate preventive controls in place to ensure that the food they produce is safe. The bad news is that resources are limited, so the FDA will be establishing partnerships which includes accrediting third party auditors to certify that foreign food facilities are complying with U.S. food safety standards. While many tout this as a good idea, it still does not give the FDA or the public any ability to truly know where foreign ingredients are coming from, and how they are handled before they get to the manufacturing plant. In fact, it is entirely possible that the same people who imported the tainted foods that killed so many pets will now have the ability to “certify” their shipments. Our advice? Don’t take chances. Stick with locally sourced ingredients.