CHICAGO, March 20, 2025 — The Food and Drug Administration has given the nation’s food supply chain an extra 30 months to comply with the Food Traceability Rule, the controversial measure requiring precise records of the supply process for the sake of food safety.
The rule was scheduled to take effect Jan. 1. Operators, suppliers and distributors alike had acknowledged that compliance by that date would have been difficult, given the measure’s complexity.
It essentially required anyone in the food chain to keep exact records of what ingredients they received and where those foods went next. A commissary, for instance, would have had to log in everything it received from distributors or other upstream sources, along with precise records of where the food was then transported.
The aim was to enhance food safety by allowing regulators to pinpoint a contaminated or compromised product.
The FDA apparently heard the food industry’s complaints. “The final rule requires a higher degree of coordination between members of the food industry than has been required in the past,” the agency said in announcing the delay late Thursday afternoon. “Even those few entities who are well positioned to meet the final rule’s requirements by January 2026 have expressed concern about the timeline.
“Therefore, FDA intends to allow industry additional time, across all regulated sectors, to fully implement the final rule’s requirements,” it continued.
The agency stressed that it was not dropping the recording requirements, which have been a work in progress for years. The law mandating the new processes was passed in 2022.
Parties that would be affected said compliance was difficult because not every link in the supply chain is equally adept or diligent at keeping records, yet those lapses effect the next downstream link.
In addition, the rule would have required many of the participants to change their recordkeeping methods.
The FDA said it would use the extra 2.5 years of the delay to work with those parties to facilitate compliance.
As Managing Editor for IFMA The Food Away from Home Association, Romeo is responsible for generating the group's news and feature content. He brings more than 40 years of experience in covering restaurants to the position.