The Food Safety Preventive Controls Alliance (FSPCA), a public/private alliance of key industry, academic and government stakeholders, recently presented its winter update on a live webinar. The FSPCA provides trainers and processors with educational courses on four sections of FSMA. These include Preventive Controls (Human Food) and Preventive Controls (Animal Food) rules, both finalized by FDA on September 17, 2015; the Foreign Supplier Verification Program (FSVP), finalized on November 27, 2015; and the Intentional Adulteration rule, to be finalized on May 31, 2016. (For an introduction to FSPCA, see “FSMA HARPC update,” FE, October 2014.)
“Earlier this year, we moved [our] training effort into a pilot phase in which we did a number of pilot training sections to get more feedback from the community,” says Robert Brackett, vice president of the Illinois Institute of Technology and director of the Institute for Food Safety and Health. The alliance has been developing curricula (Phase 2) and moving into the pilot phase (3) as FSMA rules are finalized. Implementation of courses (Phase 4) began in late 2015 with the finalization of Preventive Controls rules and FSVP and continues through 2017.