WASHINGTON (FNS) -- The Food and Drug Administration's request for comments earlier this year on extending its proposed seafood food safety inspection program to cover some food manufacturing, including in-store cooking operations, drew 35 responses by the Dec. 1 comment deadline.
At issue is whether food safety at processors, wholesalers and retailers should be governed by a Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point program, or HACCP. The FDA has proposed a HACCP program for the seafood industry, but it does not extend to the retail level.
In its comments to FDA, the Food Marketing Institute here said retailers should be excluded from any broad-based food-industry HACCP program that might include in-store prepared food.
"Mandatory HACCP for retailers and wholesalers is especially unnecessary and unworkable," the trade group said. "HACCP, when used in the food manufacturing environment, can be more easily implemented because functions and processes can be individually defined, monitored and recorded. In a retail setting, however, food preparation activities cannot be so easily defined and separated from the many other activities occurring in the retail environment." The FMI said industry HACCP programs, coupled with wide use of a new FDA voluntary Food Code issued earlier this year, are working to ensure food prepared in stores doesn't become contaminated with illness-causing bacteria.
