Keeping in line with commitments made under FDA’s New Era of Smarter Food Safety, the FDA has announced a food traceability proposed rule to create more recordkeeping requirements for specific foods. The proposed rule, “Requirements for Additional Traceability Records for Certain Foods”, puts additional requirements on companies that manufacture, process, pack or hold foods on the Food Traceability List to establish and maintain records related to critical tracking events (i.e., growing, receiving, transforming, creating and shipping).

Foods on the proposed traceability list have been selected based on a risk-ranking model for food tracing and include:

• Cheese
• Shell eggs
• Nut butter
• Cucumbers
• Herbs
• Leafy greens
• Melons
• Peppers
• Sprouts
• Tomatoes
• Tropical tree fruits
• Fresh-cut fruits and vegetables
• Finfish
• Crusteaceans
• Mollusks
• Ready-to-eat deli salads

The requirements of the proposed rule pertain to the above-foods as a standalone product as well as when an ingredient in a product.