Is FDA Planning To Suspend Routine Food Safety Inspections?

April 21, 2025

April 21, 2025

If so, food safety inspections would be outsourced to state and local authorities

Budgetary plans for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reportedly may end most routine food safety inspections. However, the agency has denied these reports.

According to CBS News, multiple sources have told the media outlet that the latest planned moves, although not finalized, would result in food safety inspections being outsourced to state and local authorities. Congressional action may be necessary to fully fund any planned changes.

“The claim that the FDA is suspending routine food safety inspections is false. FDA is actively working to ensure continuity of operations during the reorganization period and remains committed to ensuring critical programs and inspections continue,” a spokesperson for the agency said in a written statement.

Food Safety Magazine reported that the FDA may also be suspending its quality control program for its food testing laboratories, and its testing for highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 in dairy and pet foods.

The media outlet stated that documents seen by Inside Health Policy, about the preliminary White House budget, indicate that the Trump administration may propose $6.5 billion in funding for the FDA in Fiscal Year (FY) 2026. That amounts to a 17% budget cut compared to fiscal year 2023. However, former President Biden’s budget request for the FDA in FY 2025 was $7.2 billion, representing a 7.4% increase of $495 million over FY 2023 and $153 million over FY 2024. Former FDA Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods Jim Jones’ request for $15 million in additional funding to support the agency’s Human Foods Program priorities for FY 2025 was not granted. The draft budget documents propose to make the reduced $6.5 billion possible by “expanding the current state contracts for the routine food facility inspections program to cover 100 percent of all routine foods.”

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) plans to submit an implementation plan that includes state-by-state timeframes by May 1, 2025. CBS News reported that some FDA employees, according to one current and one former official, have been working on a possible shift of the agency’s routine food efforts to states for years. That projected move could free up resources to focus on higher-priority and foreign inspections. The FDA outsources some of the routine food inspections through contracts with 43 states and Puerto Rico.“There’s so much work to go around. And us duplicating their work just doesn’t make sense,” one former FDA official told CBS News after working on the plans before leaving the agency. That person spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The FDA is reportedly responsible for ensuring the safety of much of the food supply distributed across state lines, including packaged products, seafood, eggs, and produce.

In recent years, some states and advocacy groups have discussed the possibility of the FDA outsourcing its routine food inspections to states, as they can often conduct inspections at a lower cost than the agency while meeting the same standards.

“In theory, relying on states to do more routine food inspection work could lead to better food safety,” said Thomas Gremillion, director of Food Policy at the Consumer Federation of America. But, doing so would take time and resources, according to Gremillion.

“So far, this Administration has acted with reckless disregard for how its policies will affect the detection and prevention of foodborne illness, and any plans to replace federal food inspectors with some other workforce deserve suspicion,” he said.

Is FDA Planning To Suspend Routine Food Safety Inspections?

Related Posts

National Parks Service Warns Of Potential Woes Due To Staffing Issues Driven By Budget Cuts

US stocks sink with the US dollar’s value as investors retreat further from the United States

‘Sinners’ Tops Easter Weekend Box Office With $45.6M