Dive Brief:
- U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is asking the FDA for more inspections and harsher penalties for unsanitary food facilities as well as a searchable database of these problematic facilities.
- Currently, the FDA performs inspections every three years for "high risk" facilities and fewer inspections for the rest.
- Schumer requests that any facility that receives a warning letter from the FDA, which the administration archives on its website, be immediately categorized as "high risk."
Dive Insight:
In a press release, Schumer said, "At the end of 2014, the FDA quietly revealed hundreds of food safety violations at food processing facilities over the course of the year, and everyone from restaurant-goers to owners are appalled by some of the disgusting conditions at warehouses that supply our food. Reports of the filthy conditions at some of these warehouses sound like a page straight out of Upton Sinclair's 'The Jungle.'"