Food Safety Best Practices for Human Foods
Safeguarding public health is a shared mission, and the FDA is deeply committed to working with industry partners. The FDA believes that when the industry comes together to create best practices for food safety, it’s a powerful step toward enhancing public health. To support these efforts, FDA engages with stakeholders to provide technical assistance, share relevant scientific information and data, and help ensure alignment with applicable laws and regulations.
What are best practices?
Best practices are guidelines, often specific to an individual food commodity or specific segment of an industry, developed by industry, academia, or other groups based on their experience and lessons learned. They are intended to communicate meaningful food safety best practices that farms, facilities, or other food producers can follow in their day-to-day operations to enhance food safety. They are not FDA guidance documents.
Why are best practices important?
Best practices bridge the gap between regulatory requirements and real-world implementation and provide commodity-specific direction on up-to-date food safety approaches and practices. If done well, they may reduce compliance uncertainty, promote consistency across the industry, and ultimately support the overarching goal of protecting public health. The most effective best practices are science- and risk-based, stakeholder-informed, clearly written, and kept current over time. These documents can be enormously helpful and may supplement regulatory guidance documents developed by FDA.
Stakeholders may pair their best practices documents with robust education and training efforts and verification mechanisms that help confirm practices are being implemented as intended. Well-crafted guidelines are unlikely to be effective if they are not adopted in practice.
How can FDA assist with best practices?
FDA subject matter experts often participate in industry- or academia-led workgroups, share scientific data and insights, provide technical and regulatory expertise, and review resources and best practices developed by external stakeholders. FDA encourages stakeholders to connect with us when they are developing best practices for technical assistance, scientific information, and help with regulatory alignment. Level of engagement may depend on HFP priorities and available resources. Interested stakeholders may reach out to the FDA as they develop best practices documents by submitting a request to the Food and Cosmetic Information Center.
FDA Involvement in Industry-led Best Practices
FDA subject matter experts have participated in Working Groups to support the development of industry-led best practices, including:
- “Guidelines to Validate Control of Cross-Contamination during Washing of Fresh-Cut Leafy Vegetables.” Journal of Food Protection: Guidelines To Validate Control of Cross-Contamination during Washing of Fresh-Cut Leafy Vegetables
- The National Onion Association and the International Fresh Produce Association’s Commodity Specific Food Safety Guidelines for the Dry Bulb Onion Supply Chain
- The Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) Alliance Commodity Specific Food Safety Guidelines for Controlled Environment Agriculture Produce Production of Leafy Greens and Herbs.
- The North American Tomato Trade Work Group (NATTWG) and United Fresh Commodity Specific Food Safety Guidelines for the Fresh Tomato Supply Chain - 3rd Edition)
- A netted melons guide is anticipated for release in 2026 and a fresh and frozen berry guide is currently in development
FDA subject matter experts have also provided technical assistance to organizations in their development of Best Practices, including:
- The Texas International Produce Association and United Fresh Produce Association’s: Food Safety Best Practices Guide for the Growing & Handling of Mexican Papaya, First Edition
- The 2018-2020 National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods (NACMCF)’s subcommittee on Microbiological Testing by Industry of Ready-To-Eat Foods Under FDA's Jurisdiction for Pathogens (or Appropriate Indicator Organisms): Verification of Preventive Controls
- The International Refrigerated Transportation Association's "Refrigerated Transportation Best Practices Guide for sanitary and safe transportation of perishable products, designed to support compliance with FDA's Sanitary Transportation rule
- Consumer Brands Association’s Better Process Control School manual: Canned Foods: Principles of Thermal Process Control, Acidification, and Container Closure Evaluation