FDA to Begin Food CGMP Survey Pretest

WASHINGTON—In an effort to provide additional protection against foodborne illness, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will begin pretesting of its voluntary current food industry practices (CGMPs) survey instrument. Survey results will assist FDA in characterizing current food industry practices to accurately identify safe, cost-effective industry practices for modernized food CGMPs.

The survey will seek information about five key issues relevant to the food CGMP modernization effort—employee training; sanitation and personal hygiene; allergen controls; process controls; and recordkeeping.

CGMPs describe the methods, equipment, physical plants and controls for producing safe processed food. They were last revised in 1986. FDA intends to conduct a statistical survey of 2,700 large and small domestic food facilities that will be asked to respond to the survey instrument and may do so via the Internet or mail.

The purpose of the pretest, which will involve sending the instrument via Internet to 50 to 60 facilities, is to ensure that the survey instrument is clear, unambiguous, elicits the information the agency needs and does not impose an undue burden on industry respondents.

Responses to the pretest and the actual survey will be kept confidential. All data will be collected, compiled and kept by the independent consulting firm Eastern Research Group, Inc. (ERG) and only used for statistical purposes. The ERG reports will summarize findings across the sample and will not associate responses with a specific company or individual. ERG will not provide information that identifies companies to anyone outside the ERG study team at any time.