Friday, March 4, 2011

New Tea Import Regulations Introduced in USA & Canada


Article from: http://www.tea.ca/


Due to the new regulations on food safety being implemented in the United States, under President Barack Obama's legislation, Canada is also planning to change its current regulations. Responsibility is now shifting to the "importers," who will be solely liable for the safety and traceability of all products being brought in.

Regulations were first established when our food was grown domestically. Now with more and more imported products arriving each day, governments are updating regulations to reflect our new diets and consumer trends. The philosophy in the United States mirrors previous laws that aim to counter terrorism on the domestic home front. As North American governments are taking a proactive stance by focusing on preventing possible terrorist attacks in our food chain, we can expect a direct impact on the importers and their businesses, as well as the entire tea industry.

For Canada, this means that the inspections conducted at the "shelf" level will now be conducted at the borders. This will have a tremendous impact on tea, as the totality of our product is completely imported. This also means that we need to make sure that we are part of the low risk product groups. The call to move faster on our compliance issue is louder than ever. TAC cannot stress enough that this is the time for the Industry to work together towards compliance, as there is no doubt that we are not only a safe product but a healthy one.

Please visit our website www.tea.ca and sign in under our member's only section. All PDF files and information on new policies can be found under the Government Regulations tab and then under Updates.

No comments:

Post a Comment