By Cary Greene
If you’re exporting wine, or thinking about it, you should be
aware of an emerging trend relating to foreign registrations and inspections. The implementation of the Food Safety
Modernization Act (FSMA) has been hot topic recently, particularly with respect
to the new registration
requirements contained in that law.
But FSMA also gave the Food & Drug Administration (FDA)
greater power to inspect foreign and domestic facilities. While wineries are largely shielded from
these new powers due to a first of
its kind exemption that limits FDA’s authority over wine regulation, FSMA’s
inspection provisions seems to be starting a problematic trend—in the form of retaliatory
foreign registrations and inspections.
China, Canada, Russia, Vietnam and Indonesia, are in the
process of implementing legislation that directly responds to FSMA. In apparent protest of FDA’s new powers, these
countries are giving their local agencies registration and inspection authority
over U.S. producers.
While we’ve have heard no reports of actual inspections,
we’ve expressed our concern with the Alcohol & Tobacco Tax & Trade
Bureau (TTB). Foreign inspections would pose
a host of practical and business problems for American wineries. It should be up to TTB to determine whether a
producer is complying with U.S. production laws, and we will work with the
agency to ensure there is a clear plan to deal with this potentially
significant problem.
