Inspectors from U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) will carry out an on-site audit in Vietnam from 2 to 13 March to ensure the country’s inspection system for siluriformes fish, mainly pangasius, continues to meet its import requirements.
The move will be made after FSIS in November last year announced that Vietnam, Thailand, and China are eligible to export siluriformes fish, including pangasius and basa, to the U.S.
NAFIQAD held a meeting with relevant agencies and exporters in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho on 7 February to prepare for the FSIS audit.
“As USDA’s public health agency, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is committed to ensuring the safety and wholesomeness of all imported meat, including siluriformes, poultry, and processed egg products for American families,” an FSIS spokesperson said in an email to SeafoodSource on 12 February, declining to confirm the visit or any dates, citing the safety of the auditors.
In the meeting, the NAFIQAD official asked the companies to review their food safety and quality management throughout their production, transport, processing and exports. Companies that have had cargoes rejected in the past by FSIS must show evidence to prove that any problems cited by the agency have been addressed.
This will be the second on-site audit by FSIS following the first conducted in May 2018.
During that inspection, eight out of 13 exporters shipping the fish to the U.S. at the time and two farms were audited, according to a proposed rule by FSIS posted on the Federal Register in September 2018.
FSIS said the 2018 audit did not find any deficiencies posing risks to public health. But it find find NAFIQAD inspectors did not recognize all the establishments inspected had failed to document their sanitation monitoring results in an adequate way, among a few other shortcomings.
The U.S. agency then sent NAFIQAD its draft audit report and demanded written responses from Vietnam, which must indicate the actions it will take to improve its inspection system. After receiving feedback from Vietnam, FSIS concluded that all the issues identified by the auditors had been resolved.
Photo courtesy of Food Safety and Inspection Service
