Filling Holes in the Food Supply

Newstalk Group Project

Time Magazine discussed the issue about food safety in the U.S. in “Filling Holes in the Food Supply”. This report revealed the lack of sufficient resources and authority to ensure food safety in the Food and Drug Administration. In the U.S., imports are allowed to come in at over 300 ports of entry. It is impossible to have staff from the FDA at each facility to test and inspect food. Furthermore, importers might take advantage of this. They know where the FDA does not have an inspector or a lab so it will be easy to transport imports without obstruction. Some people worry about this would leave the U.S. open to sabotage. The public panic arose from contaminated foods and the fear of infectious diseases such as the E. coli outbreak several years ago were significant examples. The solutions to this issue require new technology that can inspect foods quickly and new laws for the companies to pay a fee in order to import foods into the U.S.


Food safety problems include not only domestic food production but also imported foods. For food production lines inside the country, the authority has more ability to control them. Unfortunately, more and more foods are imported every year due to the low production cost in other countries. It is shocking that the FDA inspected less than 1 percent of total imports. According to this report, even if the government passed the law for companies to pay a fee in order to cover the cost of food inspection, the percentage of inspected food will hopefully increase to 3 to 4 percent of total imports. This is just a small improvement. On the other hand, what is a reasonable percentage of food inspection every year? Is it worth to spend more money just to inspect more imports every year? Maybe the government can focus on screening imports from certain countries or restrict the company which had an unqualified record from importing foods.