• Posted April 21, 2025

FDA May Shift Routine Food Inspections to States

MONDAY, April 21, 2025 (HealthDay News) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may soon hand off routine food safety inspections to state and local officials, multiple federal health officials told CBS News.

These changes are not final and could require approval and funding from Congress. Some FDA employees have been discussing a handoff for years. The goal is to free up federal staff for higher priotiry or foreign inspections.

"The claim that the FDA is suspending routine food safety inspections is false," an FDA spokesperson said. "FDA is actively working to ensure continuity of operations during the reorganization period and remains committed to ensuring critical programs and inspections continue."

The FDA already contracts with 43 states and Puerto Rico to do some routine inspections. 

States have handled about one-third of routine inspections in recent years, according to a Government Accountability Office report.

"There's so much work to go around. And us duplicating their work just doesn't make sense," a former FDA official who worked on the plans before leaving the agency and spoke on the condition of anonymity, told CBS News.

The FDA oversees safety of foods like packaged goods, seafood, eggs and produce. Some meat products are handled by a separate agency in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Under the tentative plan, some inspections considered higher risk would still be done by the FDA. For example, the agency would continue to inspect infant formula manufacturers and foreign food facilities, CBS News reported.

It’s unclear what would happen in states without inspection contracts, such as Hawaii and Delaware.

In addition to routine checks, the FDA also investigates food problems. Last year, for example, inspectors found dozens of violations during a visit to a Colorado onion processor linked to an E.coli outbreak. 

The idea to shift food inspections to states started gaining steam after passage of major food safety laws in 2010. Some states and experts have argued that states can do the inspections cheaper while meeting the same standards, CBS News reported.

"FDA audits have determined states inspections to be high quality, and the costs show them to be a good economic value. There is significant cost to managing two systems also," said Steve Mandernach, executive director of the Association of Food and Drug Officials.

Mandernach compared the change to how the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services rely heavily on states to inspect hospitals and nursing homes while maintaining federal oversight. This model already works for produce farms, with many states handling inspections through local agriculture departments, he added.

The FDA faces delays in overseas inspections and in areas like medical products. Deploying state workers for routine inspections could help ease that backlog, officials have said.

The agency recently laid off many support staff and may bring in outside contractors to help fill the gap.

"In theory, relying on states to do more routine food inspection work could lead to better food safety," Thomas Gremillion, director of food policy at the Consumer Federation of America, said in an email to CBS News. 

But he warned that a change like this would take time and money to do safely. 

“So far, this Administration has acted with reckless disregard for how its policies will affect the detection and prevention of foodborne illness,” Gremillion added.

More information

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has more on the importance of food safety inspections.

SOURCE: CBS News, April 18, 2025