Companies confident to meet FSMA guidelines

Sparta Systems, Inc., an industry pioneer and global leader in enterprise quality management software (EQMS) solutions, conducted an online survey of 150 food and beverage professionals in the US about the FDA’s Food Safety and Modernization Act (FSMA), which has largely switched the focus from responding to contamination of food supply to prevention.

Sparta found that 61 percent of respondents are confident their organizations are prepared to meet requirements of the FSMA.

The survey shows that 43 percent of respondents agreed that the regulation will increase visibility and safety throughout the supply chain.

Respondents from large or enterprise-level organizations were certain in their organizations’ readiness for FSMA’s Foreign Supplier Verification Program (FSVP), which requires importers to perform risk-based tests to verify that foreign-manufactured food or food ingredients are as safe as those produced in the US.

The survey also revealed a lack of automated systems for managing compliance across the supply chain: More than a third (38 percent) said their organizations manually track, manage and report food quality and safety, while 56 percent of respondents classified processes as partially automated. Only seven percent reported fully automated systems.

“After FSMA was enacted in January 2011, and raised the industry standard for food safety, F&B companies saw a 41% increase in warning letters issued by the FDA as a result,” said Brandon Henning, Director of Industry Solutions at Sparta Systems. “FSMA regulations only stand to get tougher and more complex, which could prove particularly challenging for those managing compliance through manual or hybrid systems. It is critical now for organizations to adopt sustainable methods, such as EQMS solutions, that will ensure visibility into the food quality and safety processes of all suppliers and contract manufacturers.”

Other findings:

20 percent of respondents from medium-sized companies disagreed that their organizations were ready or had a clear strategy to be compliant with FSMA.

93 percent) of respondents with job functions related to Quality Assurance agreed that supplier visibility is important to their organizations.

60 percent believe "improved supply chain visibility" would help improve food quality and safety.

37 percent believe automation of quality and safety processes would yield a positive impact.