The Certification and Accreditation Administration of China ("CNCA") has recently released the Announcement on Responses of Food Enterprises Exporting to the United State to Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Related Regulations (the "Announcement").
The Announcement notes that, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has released several accompanying guidance successively for the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) since 2015, bringing an array of new challenges on overseas processing and manufacturing enterprises and importers of imported food, among others, for food sold within the territory of US. In recent days, the Current Good Manufacturing Practice, Hazard Analysis, and Risk-based Preventive Controls for Human Food (21CFR117) and other regulations have officially taken effect in the US. The Announcement warns that all enterprises that export their products to the US should be aware of the compliance timeframe set out in the corresponding regulations, in accordance with their own business scale and situations of their exports to the US, design and implement the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) system and the food safeguard scheme in line with requirements set out in the FDA/FSMA, update their registration with the FDA in time, and remind their American importers of, and cooperate with them in fulfilling the duty with respect to importer verification in accordance with the Foreign Supplier Verification Program (FSVP), the Voluntary Qualified Importer Program (VQIP), etc.