The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently finalized two new rules that require food facilities and importers of food and beverages to monitor and document the compliance status of each supplier, "including FDA warning letters or import alerts relating to the safety of food and other FDA compliance actions." The two new rules, the Preventive Controls and the Foreign Supplier Verification Program (FSVP) rules, are part of FDA's implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). Importers who wish to participate in FDA's Voluntary Qualified Importer Program (VQIP) must also monitor their suppliers, as VQIP importers may not import any food subject to an FDA Import Alert or Class I Recall.

To assist the food industry to comply with this new requirement, FDA consulting firm Registrar Corp created theFDA Compliance Monitor. Users simply submit the facility they would like to monitor and the FDA Compliance Monitor will reveal any FDA Import Alerts, Warning Letters, Import Refusals, or Inspection Classifications related to the facility. Printable reports allow users to document the compliance of their monitored facilities per FDA's requirements.

Monitoring suppliers can be a time consuming process. In order to monitor supplier compliance using FDA's databases, a user would need to search each individual database for each supplier every time he wanted to purchase from them. The FDA Compliance Monitor makes monitoring quick and easy by aggregating and organizing supplier data into one simple compliance dashboard. Data within the monitor is consistently updated, and users are e-mailed anytime a change occurs in the compliance status of a company they are monitoring.

New users can sign up for a free 60-day trial today. Free trial users can monitor an unlimited number of companies for FDA compliance. No credit card information is required. For those who wish to continue monitoring after the trial, it's only $1.99 a month per monitored facility.

For questions about FDA's new FSMA rules or the FDA Compliance Monitor, contact +1-757-224-0177, e-mail [email protected], or live help is available 24-hours a day online.