FDA Recognizes ANAB as Accreditation Body for FSMA

ANAB has been accepted into the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s voluntary Accredited Third-Party Certification Program, which was established by the Food Safety Modernization Act to expand FDA’s oversight of imported foods.

ANAB is the first accreditation body to gain FDA recognition for the program.

As an accreditation body recognized by FDA, ANAB has the authority to accredit third-party certification bodies that will conduct food safety audits of foreign food entities using FDA’s safety standards and, based on their audit findings, may issue certifications of foreign food facilities and the foods they produce for people and animals.

“With today’s announcement of the ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board as the first accrediting board to be recognized, we are moving forward in our efforts to ensure parity between domestic and foreign food producers,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said today in a speech to the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture. “These certifications will be used for two purposes. First, they will establish eligibility for participation in the Voluntary Qualified Importer Program, known as VQIP, that offers expedited review and entry of food for importers who achieve and maintain a high level of control over the safety and security of their supply chains. And second, they will require that an imported product be certified in certain circumstances to keep a potentially harmful food from entering the country.”

The official recognition came about after ANAB was evaluated by FDA and successfully demonstrated conformance with all FDA requirements. ANAB has been added to FDA’s Accredited Body Public Registry at https://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/ImportsExports/Importing/ucm594398.htm.  Additional information about FDA’s Voluntary Qualified Importer Program can be found at https://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/FSMA/ucm361903.htm.

“We look forward to working with FDA to improve the safety of imported food. ANAB provides further credibility by incorporating the requirements of ISO/IEC 17021-1, the international standard for certification bodies providing audit and certification of management systems, as base requirements for this program in addition to FDA requirements,” Lori Gillespie, ANAB Vice President of Management Systems, said. “This will allow accreditation oversight to be combined with any of ANAB’s existing management systems accreditation programs.”