Food Safety and Inspection Service February 2015 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Office of the Under Secretary for Food Safety, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is sponsoring a public meeting on February 25, 2015. The objective of the public meeting is to provide information and receive public comments on agenda items and draft United States (U.S.) positions to be discussed at the 29th Session of the Codex Committee on General Principles (CCGP) of the Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex), which will take place in Paris, France, March 9-13,2015. The Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety recognizes the importance of providing interested parties the opportunity to obtain background information on the 29th Session of CCGP and to address items on the agenda.

FSIS is making available to the public its new Web-based Self- Reporting Tool (SRT) that it will be sending to foreign countries to report information on their food regulatory systems for the purpose of establishing that the systems are, or continue to be, equivalent to that of the United States' system. The Agency will send a letter to foreign countries with instructions on how to access and use the Web- based SRT. FSIS is also responding to the comments on its document review process for determining and verifying equivalence that the Agency received in response to the Federal Register notice that it published on January 25, 2013, on the use of the SRT. FSIS evaluates the information provided in the SRT and uses it, along with the results of on-site systems audits and port-of-entry (POE) reinspections, to make a determination on equivalence.