The leaders of the USDA and the FDA, which together oversee the U.S. food supply, signed a formal agreement at the White House to reduce regulatory overlap and improve the efficiency of the federal food safety system. An administration spokesman said the agreement “outlines efforts to increase interagency collaboration, efficiency, and effectiveness on produce safety and biotechnology activities, while providing clarity to manufacturers.”
For more than a century, the USDA has been responsible for meat inspection; its portfolio includes processed meats, catfish, and eggs. The FDA is in charge of the safety of fruit, vegetables, packaged foods, dairy, and seafood. The division of duties can lead to regulatory confusion. In the manufacture of frozen pizza, for example, the FDA is in charge of cheese pizza, but the USDA is responsible for pizzas that contain meat.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said the Food Safety Modernization Act aims to prevent food contamination from field to table, so the USDA and the FDA are both involved. “The USDA has the knowledge and expertise to support the FDA’s work related to farming,” he said in a statement. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said that over the past several months, he and Perdue had identified “several areas where we can strengthen our collaboration to make our processes more efficient, predictable, and potentially lower cost to industry.” The new agreement, he said, “not only formalizes this ongoing coordination, but presents a great opportunity to expand those efforts through better integration and increased clarity to the agriculture and food processing sectors.”