FPAA continues to push forward in areas of policy, and this year’s Spring Policy Summit is no exception. If food safety is of interest to you or your company, plan to take advantage of this opportunity.

We have a strong slate of food safety speakers and topics, starting on Wednesday, March 21, when we will lay out a vision for benchmarking the new food safety laws from the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Essentially, the idea is to determine where the three food safety laws accomplish essentially the same result, and encourage the governments to work more closely together on inspections, certifications and epidemiological studies. In the long run, we would like to see your company’s food safety system to demonstrate compliance with all three countries, without having to go for three different certifications, for instance.

If you are really deep into food safety, we have an invitation-only North American Produce Food Safety Working Group meeting on Tuesday, March 20. If you are a food safety professional who is interested in this opportunity, please contact Georgina Felix at Gfelix@freshfrommexico.com to let us know about your interest in this working group. This group includes food safety professionals and regulators from the U.S., Mexico and Canada. It’s a key way to help align methods and goals across the three nations.

And finally, we are welcoming back crowd favorite Domenic Veneziano for the following Table-top Food Safety Exercise:  Putting Your Best Food Forward – The Food and Drug Administration knocks on your door for an inspection. What’s next? What should you have already prepared? Do you have to answer every question? How do you minimize disruption to your business while assisting FDA? Come to this interactive session to get some pointers from Domenic Veneziano, formerly of the FDA’s Office of Import Operations.

Register here for the FPAA Spring Policy Summit, March 20-21, 2018, in Tubac, Ariz.

Next week, I’ll tell you more about some of our other speakers. If you can’t wait, be sure to check out the whole lineup.

Lance Jungmeyer, President, Fresh Produce Association of the Americas