The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) requires the Food and Drug Administration to prepare and submit reports to Congress at regular intervals. Last week, FDA submitted its second "Annual Report on Food Facilities, Food Imports, and FDA Foreign Offices."

The report describes food safety activities undertaken by FDA and in partnership with other agencies at the federal, state and local levels. It includes the cost and number of domestic and foreign food facility inspections, as well as other activities that support FDA’s compliance actions.

According to the report, FDA regulates $417 billion worth of domestic food and $49 billion worth of imported foods. The agency oversees more than 420,000 domestic and foreign registered facilities and spent approximately $189.5 million on inspections in fiscal 2011. Of this amount, $131.3 million was used for FDA inspections at 19,073 domestic facilities and $33.2 million for inspections at 995 foreign food facilities.

FDA said it also devoted "significant time and resources" to building a fully integrated national food safety system in collaboration with regulatory and public health partners. The agency established several working groups to begin the process of implementing FSMA provisions that would affect state, local, tribal and territorial partners.

• View the full report here.

For more information, contact Clay Detlefsen, IDFA vice president of regulatory affairs, at cdetlefsen@idfa.org.