FDA has extended the compliance date for the Food Traceability rule, now giving businesses until June 20, 2028, to comply with the complex regulation.
The grocery industry has welcomed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision to extend the compliance date for the Food Traceability Rule by 30 months – until June 20, 2028 – giving businesses more time to comply with what FMI – The Food Industry Association has described as an “overly complex rule.”
“The final rule requires a higher degree of coordination between members of the food industry than has been required in the past,” FDA explained when it revealed the extension late in the afternoon of Thursday, March 20. “Even those few entities who are well positioned to meet the final rule’s requirements by [the original deadline of] January 2026 have expressed concern about the timeline. … Therefore, FDA intends to allow industry additional time, across all regulated sectors, to fully implement the final rule’s requirements.”
“While additional time is critical for efficient implementation across all sectors, we also strongly believe FDA should re-examine certain aspects of the rule to provide flexibility for the industry to improve traceability without unnecessarily burdening the supply chain and increasing food costs to consumers,” noted Leslie G. Sarasin, president and CEO of Arlington, Va.-based FMI, the trade organization representing retailers, suppliers and service providers, adding that the “extension is critical to allow the industry to meet the regulation’s intent while ensuring FDA is able to receive and utilize the data it needs to improve food safety more efficiently with the least impact on consumer prices.”
[RELATED: How Traceability Shortcuts Can Prove Costly to Food Safety]
Added Sarasin: “The food traceability rule is the most complex FDA regulation our industry has ever faced. Our member companies are spending millions of dollars every day to try to comply with its complexity, even as it is clear the rule is unworkable in its current form and may not achieve the agency’s stated goals. While we fully support efforts to improve traceability, we must ensure that FDA can use the information required by the regulation to improve food safety before billions of dollars and millions of hours are invested that will drive up costs throughout the supply chain.”
She noted that the extension “will make a tremendous difference to consumers in communities throughout the country who, by this action, will not experience avoidable food price increases. We look forward to working with FDA to ensure there is a reasonable timeline and application of the regulation so that food companies of all sizes can comply and keep America’s food system the safest, most abundant and most affordable in the world.”
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