By Cary M. Greene
It’s time to try to register your winery
with FDA.
As WineAmerica announced last July when the Food Safety Modernization Act became law, wineries
are required to register as “food facilities” with the Food & Drug
Administration (“FDA”) “[d]uring the period beginning on October 1 and ending
on December 31 of each even-numbered year.” See 21 U.S.C. § 350d(a)(3) (emphasis
added).
That would mean wineries are
supposed to renew their registration with FDA over the next three months.
Ordinarily, FDA’s website is user
friendly and online registration fairly straightforward. FDA even has a Help Desk line, 800-216-7331, in case you run into trouble. Currently, however, the site where wineries
would register contains a notice:
Biennial
Registration Renewal for Food Facilities will not be available on October 1,
2012. We therefore will not be accepting
food facility registration renewals at this time. Please check FDA’s website at
http://www.access.fda.gov
at a later date or
sign up for FSMA updates
to be informed when it becomes available. Additional information regarding Registration
Renewal may be found on the FSMA Registration page.
We’ve checked
with FDA, and they’re saying that wineries don’t need to submit their renewal registrations
for 2012 yet. This doesn’t mean you’re
released of your obligation to register this year, it just means you need to
check periodically on FDA’s registration page, or the WineAmerica blog, until
registration goes live.
Edit: The registration is now active.
Edit: The registration is now active.
