Food Safety News – Effective Oct. 31 the FDA will require import certifications for all shrimp and spices within certain parts of Indonesia because of the risk of radioactivity.
The move comes after levels of the radioactive isotope Cesium-137 were detected in shipping containers for shrimp and in a sample of cloves, with a total of more than 58 million pounds of shrimp having been shipped in the implicated containers.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has published seven recalls on shrimp associated with BMS Foods, the Indonesian importer ultimately found to be supplying the potentially contaminated shrimp.
Also, the FDA recently detected Cs-137 in a sample of cloves from another Indonesian company, Natural Java Spice, and subsequently denied it permission to enter the United States.
Officials in Indonesia have determined that the problems stem from an accident that was out of the control of the implicated companies.
The Indonesian government has cordoned off the industrial zone of Cikande, a town about 40 miles west of Jakarta, to clean up 10 sources of Cs-137. Nine people have been treated for radiation exposure.
The contamination appears to be the fault of Peter Metal Technology (PMT), a steel manufacturer in Cikande, that uses imported scrap metal as its primary raw material. It is likely that the cesium was accidentally incorporated into PMT’s waste stream at some point and then inadvertently smelted, according to Indonesia’s Ministry for Food.
The Food and Drug Administration’s move to require import certifications represents the first use of its Congressional authorized tool to address ongoing food safety problems while keeping trade flowing for products which meet the certification requirements.
In addition to issuing Import Alert #99-52, which outlines FDA’s risk-based determination and notice of the implementation of the new requirements, the FDA published a new webpage explaining its import certification authority.
Congress gave the FDA import certification authority through the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011. This tool allows the FDA to require certification or other assurance that imported food meets U.S. requirements before the food can leave the port of export for shipment to the United States.
The FDA may use this authority to address ongoing and repeated food safety problems through additional oversight before shipment. This approach is used in addition to current tools to cover larger volumes of trade while maintaining safety oversight. Import certification supports foreign firms’ abilities to bring compliant products to U.S. markets while keeping potentially contaminated products out of the country.
Import certification is a complementary tool that works alongside FDA’s existing import authorities in the Import Process, like Import Alerts. The FDA is using an Import Alert to communicate FDA’s import certification authority.
IMPORT ALERT #99-52 801(Q) requires certification for:
- Shrimp from the Island of Java and Lampung Province on the Island of Sumatra in Indonesia
- Spices from the Island of Java and Lampung Province on the Island of Sumatra in Indonesia.
The Import Alert creates a tiered approach with different certification requirements based on contamination risk levels, ensuring that products with appropriate certifications can continue to enter U.S. commerce while preventing potentially contaminated products from reaching consumers.
To see additional resources from FDA, visit the following:
- FDA Response to Imported Foods Potentially Contaminated with Cesium-137 | FDA
- Import Certification
- Import Alert 99-52
- Import Alert 99-51
(To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here)
