Concerning: Functional Food Defense Plans

Whereas, food defense continues to be a priority for the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), and

Whereas, FSIS promotes mitigation of food defense vulnerabilities in FSIS-regulated establishments by encouraging these establishments to voluntarily adopt a functional food defense plan, and

Whereas, a functional food defense plan can be accomplished through tools and resources available on FSIS’ website at www.fsis.usda.gov/fooddefense where establishments of any size can write, implement, and test their food defense plan and ensure it is functional, and

Whereas, in 2006, USDA/FSIS began measuring the status of industry’s voluntary adoption of food defense plans via annual surveys to determine whether each FSIS-inspected establishment has a functional food defense plan (i.e., the plan is documented; measures are in place to address outside security, inside security, personnel security, and incident response; the plan was tested in the last year, and the establishment reviewed their plan in the past year), and

Whereas, the voluntary adoption of food defense plans has been included as a performance measure in USDA’s Strategic Plan that sets a target for 90 percent of establishments to have a functional food defense plan, and

Whereas, AFDO strongly supports the implementation of functional food defense plans in all food processing establishments regardless of the size of the company, and

Whereas, AFDO recognizes that functional food defense plans contribute to a safer and more secure food supply by reducing the risk of unsafe product and economic loss, reduce theft, reduce the need for additional regulation on food defense, and reduce company liability, therefore be it

Resolved, that the AFDO Food Protection & Defense Committee, recommends that AFDO endorse the tools and resources provided by USDA/FSIS for FSIS-inspected establishments and support USDA’s target goal of having 90% of these establishments having a functional food defense plan, and be it further

Resolved, that AFDO advise state food safety program managers and the National Association of State Meat & Food Inspection Directors of its support for FSIS’s efforts with functional food defense plans and ask that they support this as well.