Mitigation Strategies to Protect Food Against Intentional Adulteration

The Rule for Mitigation Strategies to Protect Food Against Intentional Adulteration aims to prevent the intentional adulteration of food that can cause wide-scale harm to public health. 

This includes acts of terrorism targeting the food supply. These acts, though not likely to occur, could cause illness, death, and economic disruption of the food supply if there aren't any strategies in place to help prevent them from happening.

Domestic and foreign companies that are required to register with the FDA as food facilities under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic (FD&C) Act are covered under this rule.

The rule targets large companies producing foods that will reach a large number of people.

Covered facilities are required to develop and implement a written food defense plan. This written plan must identify:

• Vulnerabilities and actionable process steps. This action includes the identification of vulnerabilities and steps for each type of food manufactured, processed, packed or held at the food facility.
• Mitigation strategies.These strategies should be identified and implemented at each actionable process step to provide assurances that vulnerabilities will be minimized or prevented. 
• And procedures or management components for food defense to ensure the proper implementation of each mitigation strategy.

Additionally, the rule requires appropriate training of personnel assigned to the vulnerable areas. The facility must document the training and keep records for food defense monitoring, corrective actions, and verification activities.

The rule also requires a reanalysis of the plan every three years or when certain criteria are met.

For more information, please visit the Penn State Extension FSMA section.

This program was developed by Food Safety CTS, LLC, for Penn State Extension. Supported by a USDA NIFA Food Safety Outreach Program grant titled "Bilingual Produce Safety Educational Programming for Hispanic/Latino Fresh Produce Growers and Farmworkers in Pennsylvania," USDA NIFA Award number 2017-70020-27236