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Food safety law is here, and so are some of its effects

Now what? Yes, the new food safety law did get passed, yes it did get signed into law.

It seemed toward the end of 2010 that those events were uncertain to occur, though the law had been worked on and touted as just-around-the-corner for over a year. (We looked at that phenomenon, and some important issues raised by the law, in last month's column, packworld.com/article-31132).

But here it is, the Food and Drug Administration Food Safety Modernization Act, changing FDA's powers over many of the food companies it regulates and adding burdens, uh, responsibilities, to food companies. Meat and poultry companies aren't affected, since they are regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, about which this law does nada.

The theme of the new and multifaceted law is prevention. That is, its many new provisions are intended to prevent unsafe food from being created or reaching the market in the first place whenever possible, and to make it easier to keep such foods from consumers when they do.

Well, life being more complicated than we often acknowledge, there are two primary complications to the scene that need considering. One is that some of the provisions of the law require new funding for FDA, and the new Congress is already sending signals it won't fund them. Implementing all the law's provisions will cost an estimated $1.4 billion over the 2011-2015 period. No new funding means no new inspectors and inspections, among other things, unless money is squeezed out of other FDA functions.

The other complication is that some of the law's provisions kicked in on January 4 when President Obama signed the law, but many others require FDA to make regulations to make them effective, such as the new HACCP plans for food makers (coming in 18 months).

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