FDA Announces Enforcement Discretion of the Produce Safety Rule

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) announced an enforcement discretion policy for certain crops under the requirements of the Produce Safety Rule portion of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).  FDA indicated in a guidance document that the agency would not be holding entities that are growing, harvesting, packing, or holding either winegrapes, hops, pulse crops, or almonds responsible for meeting the requirements set forth by the Produce Safety Rule.Several industry groups that have been affected by the announcement expressed appreciation the FDA has decided to exclude certain crops from compliance expectations.  “This is significant for the California almond industry.  The leadership at FDA has accepted the information and evidence that almonds are in fact rarely consumed raw,” Almond Alliance President Elaine Trevino said in a press release.  “We are pleased the FDA listened to the science and evidence that we presented and took the appropriate action in placing almonds on the rarely consumed raw list.”