Thanks to innovations in technology and the new requirements of the US Food and Drug Administration Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), there are now “ample opportunities to strengthen public health and bring innovative food products to consumers than perhaps at any other time in history.” This is according to outgoing FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D. and Deputy Commissioner Frank Yiannas. As part of the President’s 2020 Budget, the FDA has proposed new funding across multiple aspects of US food safety systems and are seeking to invest in preventing problems by solidifying the agency’s tools under the FSMA.

A statement from Gottlieb and Yiannas reads: “We must also embrace innovations to improve our ability to secure the food supply chain and engage in more effective tracking and tracing of food from farm to fork. This includes continuing to improve our capabilities for both detecting and responding to food contamination when preventive measures alone are insufficient. The funds we’re requesting for food safety represent the FDA’s commitment to the promises we’ve made to help keep people and animals safe from contaminated food. Our vision of a future in which both human and animal health is protected and strengthened by new and emerging technologies that will create a more digital, traceable, diverse, and safer food system.”

A smarter, more technologically-advanced food safety system will always stand on the shoulders of the preventive framework of FSMA, according to the FDA, and this landmark piece of legislation represented a sea change in food safety. 

“To advance these goals, we’re proposing new resources to fund human and animal preventive controls and produce safety inspections through the State Cooperative Agreement Program. The FDA’s funding supports the states in conducting more than half of the domestic food and more than 80 percent of animal feed facility inspections required by FSMA,” says Gottlieb and Yiannas.

“We also recognize that our most effective toolkit for domestic food safety is not identical to the optimal toolkit for imported food safety. Our budget request reflects those differing needs. Our proposed budget makes other critical investments to help the FDA ensure a more secure and modern food safety framework.”

Earlier this month, FDA Commissioner Gottlieb, announced his resignation after serving less than two years in the post.

Investing in modern food safety
The work under FSMA is just one part of the FDA’s food safety net. Additional resources are required to ensure that contaminated food is detected and removed from the marketplace as quickly as possible, using the most modern technologies. For example, Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) has been a game changer for addressing microbial contamination in foods. This technology has made it easier to determine the source of contaminated food associated with illness and to identify better foodborne outbreaks that previously would have gone undetected. WGS continues to be put into widespread use as the technology itself becomes more accessible, affordable and much less bulky. 

At the same time, the more widespread use of WGS has also increased the number of detected outbreaks and subsequent investigations. The FDA is identifying more sources of potential food contamination and taking steps to reduce risks to consumers. But at the same time, the success of WGS in identifying sources of food contamination and outbreaks has also significantly increased the FDA’s workload to identify and mitigate potential food safety concerns. 

In Fiscal Years 2017 and 2018, the FDA’s Coordinated Outbreak Response and evaluation Network evaluated almost 120 potential food safety outbreak incidents per year. This is almost double what was reviewed in Fiscal Years 2015 and 2016. The increase requested in the 2020 Budget will allow the agency to add new staff and resources to enhance signal detection, response to outbreaks and post-response evaluations.

As part of the President’s 2020 Budget, the FDA is also requesting additional resources to support the use of WGS and expand the ability to respond when identifying food contamination.

These additional resources will also increase the FDA’s ability to leverage other new technologies that make it easier to track and trace products throughout the product life-cycle, from the time that they’re grown or manufactured, until a consumer uses them. In recent years, there has been emerging track and trace technologies that can assist response efforts to allow the FDA to intervene in time to alert consumers, implement recalls and avoid human illnesses. This includes blockchain technology, which uses a decentralized, secure, ledger that’s shared by all parties in the supply chain to provide transparency on a product’s origins. It can significantly assist in warning consumers about risks with specific foods and in implementing more targeted and efficient recalls.

Last month, the FDA unveiled a new strategy to advance its food safety mission and modernize the oversight of imported food. The strategy is part of an overhaul to improve food safety in the supply chain and comes as the quantity of imported foods into the US is increasing.

The new strategies are highly warranted given serious recent events. For example, in November 2018, the FDA completed a full investigation into the country’s largest E.coli outbreak in more than a decade wher five people died and scores of people were sick as a result of the food contamination. The probe provided an overview of factors that potentially contributed to the contamination of romaine lettuce with E. coli O157:H7 that has been implicated in the multistate foodborne illness outbreak.