RUF Releases Produce Safety Roadmap: A Call for Action

Constituent Update  

July 28, 2025  

Today, the Reagan-Udall Foundation (RUF) for the FDA released its Roadmap to Produce Safety: Summary Report of the Produce Safety Dialogue. The FDA-commissioned report reflects the voices of over 170 produce sector stakeholders, who together developed this roadmap as a foundation for transformative change in produce safety management through collaboration.  

The availability of safe produce is paramount to reducing chronic disease and supporting healthy diets, which is a key priority to Making America Healthy Again. However, numerous foodborne-illnesses and recalls linked to fresh produce continue to challenge consumer trust and confidence. Recognizing the complexity of produce supply chains, the report makes two primary recommendations:  

• Implement a shared responsibility approach: All stakeholders must actively participate in risk-based produce safety efforts, as foodborne illness outbreaks affect both consumers and the entire industry. The FDA takes seriously its responsibility for produce safety and encourages this approach of broader engagement and responsibility sharing.  
• Form a structured, stakeholder-led collaboration: Transformative change requires the formation of a structured, stand-alone, sustainably funded collaboration led by influential stakeholders representing the diversity of the produce supply chain. The FDA will actively participate in this effort and agrees with the report’s recommendation that regulators should not own or lead the coalition.  

In line with the RUF recommendation, the FDA is calling on growers, buyers, sellers, and federal and state regulators to form a sustainably funded stakeholder collaboration that includes academia and consumer advocates and actively improves conditions and practices to reduce contamination and prevent foodborne illness.  

While efforts advance to stand up this coalition, the FDA is committed to engagement and collaboration with stakeholders to improve science-based strategies to prevent foodborne illness from produce. The agency has ongoing prevention activities that complement the recommendations from the report – such as rigorous stakeholder engagement to learn from and share information with industry in order to identify and address root causes of outbreaks, implementation of agricultural water requirements, establishment of a data-sharing agreement, and Activities for the Safety of Imported Produce that can inform strategies to prevent recurring outbreaks for certain commodities.  

To help the agency carry out these commitments, the FDA is announcing a national search for executive leadership of the new Office of Produce Safety, established under the 2024 reorganization of the Human Foods Program.