The Integrated Food Safety
System and Why it Matters
The Integrated Food Safety System
(IFSS) is a strategy of joining food safety
efforts at all levels of government into
one unified network.
For some time, there have been calls
to create a single food safety agency to
overcome the concern over seemingly inconsistent regulatory authorities scattered across multiple agencies. However,
work had been steadily building in the
food protection community to leverage
the unique attributes of existing roles
and responsibilities of government agencies using a cooperative approach.
The importance of bringing together
the food safety resources and efforts of
federal agencies, along with those of
state, local, territorial and tribal food regulatory and public health agencies, was
first identified by the Association of
Food and Drug Officials (AFDO) in
1998 at a 50-state meeting hosted by the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
(FDA). This alignment of agency efforts
and resources was subsequently reiterated by FDA’s Deputy Commissioner
for Foods, Michael Taylor, in a report
from George Washington University;1
and by the White House Food Safety
Working Group in 2009.2 The FSMA,
which was signed into law in January
2011, lays the strategic groundwork for
fully utilizing the IFSS.
Protecting the food supply is a multi-
disciplinary effort that involves govern-
ment at all levels. Over 3,000 local
health agencies are recognized as our na-
tion’s first responders to foodborne ill-
ness. City and county officials conduct
illness surveillance and monitor the food
supply by conducting inspections at
restaurants and retail stores. State health
and agriculture agencies conduct over
90% of the food safety inspections in
food manufacturing facilities. State food
laws are typically patterned after the Fed-
eral Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, so
these agencies have very similar authori-
ties and responsibilities to those of FDA.
However, many state and local agencies
also have unique powers to take regula-
tory actions and to remove unsafe or un-
sanitary products from the market. In
fact, these unique powers, duties and re-
sources of the different agencies at each level can be leveraged through integration,
close coordination and communication to increase the safety of foods.
“The time to
modernize the
The Current State of Regulator
Food Safety Training
