The Food and Drug Administration has released a sweeping regulation intended to prevent food contamination.
The rule released Thursday comes as states continue to grapple with a massive recall of Dole frozen salads that were contaminated with the bacteria Listeria. The recall and the FDA have gotten increased scrutiny from Congress over food safety.
The rule, mandated under the Food Safety and Modernization Act of 2011, requires both domestic and foreign food facilities to complete a food defense plan.
The idea is to identify weaknesses that could lead to deliberate contamination where “the intent is to cause wide-scale public health harm,” an FDA press release said.
The final rule comes as major recalls and food safety issues continue to roil the country.
A Dole plant in Ohio that is the source of a listeria outbreak that killed four people should be shut down, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said this month.
“The fact that Dole officials were aware of a food-borne illness contamination in their facility, yet continued to ship out the product, is absolutely unconscionable,” DeLauro said in a letter to the FDA.
