FSVP Foreign Supplier Verification Program

Here's a question that has had much debate in our facility. We import tree nuts and peanuts through a broker from out of the country. The hazard with this is obviously salmonella. ALL of our products go through a pasteurization process. We sign a contract prior to the items entering the country. Who is responsible for controlling the hazard? Do we need to get the suppliers to our brokers food safety documents? Or is our broker solely responsible? I keep getting different answers to this. Thanks for any help.

This article in the new issue of Food Safety Magazine addresses some of this.

If I read it correctly, FDA does not even have an answer to your question.

Marshall

As always, it depends. 

We/I take the approach that we are ultimately responsible. However, we can decide to purchase only from manufacturers and suppliers we know and have assessed. We work with fruit/vegetable juices but generally do not supply ready to drink - our customers do that. We do provide bag-in-box for dispensing systems. All our manufacturers are GFSI certified, and many of the brokers we deal with are also (IFS or BRC). We can have confidence in the state of the juice we purchase and will know what is aseptic and what isn't. We do also visit our manufacturers and brokers so we know who we are talking to. We are both BRC Food Safety and Agents & Brokers.

It's a mix of the personal and formal assessment, but in the end you are responsible for what you sell. If it needs further processing, you must know that. If all that's happening is a repack, you need to be sure that that's sufficient.

Agreed, my stance is that we are responsible at the end of the day. When I was asked this question by my director, I really didn't have a direct answer to what the law actually states. Nor could I find one. But as I always say "If I personally am not 100% confident to feed this product to my own family, it doesn't leave our facility to be fed to anyone else's."