In March, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a draft guidance on mitigation strategies to protect food against intentional adulteration (IA), which is part of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). In the guidance, FDA defined “Key Activity Types” that it determined are “significantly vulnerable,” including companies engaged in the following:

• Bulk liquid receiving and loading
• Liquid storage and handling
• Secondary ingredient handling: “… any point step, or procedure where dry or liquid secondary ingredients are manipulated by human contact prior to addition into the product stream” such as raw material dispensing, blending operations, including adding materials to the blender or mixer, and the process of creating preblends. 

As a result of this guidance, all food facilities, foreign and domestic, are required to register with FDA under the Food Facility Registration and must establish and implement a written Food Defense Plan.
 
To further inform industry about the rule, the Global Organization for EPA and DHA Omega-3s (GOED), in conjunction with its sister organization, the United Natural Products Alliance (UNPA), has organized a webinar on the topic. The webinar will be presented by Larisa Pavlick, former investigator with FDA and currently VP, global regulatory and compliance, at UNPA.
 
The webinar takes place Wednesday, June 12, at 9:00am PDT/10:00am MDT/11:00am CDT/12:00am EDT.

Click here for more information and to register.
 
Takeaways from the webinar include:

• What is required to be compliant with the IA rule?
• What are the responsibilities of the Food Defense Qualified Individual?
• What does a Food Defense Plan include?
• How does my company conduct a vulnerability assessment?
• Options for developing and implementing mitigation strategies
• FDA resources for the Intentional Adulteration Rule

GOED and UNPA are offering this webinar free of charge to its Leadership, Plus, and Executive Level members. UNPA’s Science & Technology Services and Associate Members can register for $99. Interested companies that are not members of GOED or UNPA may participate in the webinar for $199.