What FSVP actually requires from your Vietnamese supplier
Under the Foreign Supplier Verification Program rule, the legal duty sits with the US importer, not with us. But almost every step of it runs on documents that only the supplier holds. If those documents are slow, incomplete or inconsistent, the problem lands on your desk.
Who the rule is for
FSVP is part of the Food Safety Modernization Act, written into the US Code of Federal Regulations at 21 CFR Part 1, Subpart L. It applies to the importer of the food. For each line entry, the importer's name, email address and a unique facility identifier that FDA accepts have to be submitted electronically with the customs entry.
There is one detail that catches foreign exporters out. If there is no US owner or consignee at the time of entry, the foreign owner or consignee must designate a US agent or representative to act as the importer for FSVP purposes (§ 1.509). Someone in the United States always holds the obligation.
What the importer has to do
Stripped of the legal phrasing, the rule asks for six things:
- A hazard analysis of each food you import: what can go wrong with it, and which hazards need a control (§ 1.504).
- An evaluation of the supplier before you approve them, covering their food safety practices and their compliance history, including whether they are the subject of an FDA warning letter or import alert (§ 1.505).
- Verification activities chosen to fit that evaluation: an onsite audit, sampling and testing, a review of the supplier's food safety records, or other appropriate activities (§ 1.506).
- An onsite audit before the first shipment and at least once a year when the supplier is the one controlling a hazard serious enough to cause severe illness or death, unless you document why other verification is adequate (§ 1.506).
- Reevaluation as soon as you learn something new about the supplier or the food, and in any case at least once every three years (§ 1.505).
- Records, signed and dated, available to FDA on request and kept for at least two years (§ 1.510).
Importers below the "very small importer" threshold, broadly under one million dollars a year in food sales and imports averaged over three years, can follow modified requirements (§ 1.512). The supplier side of it does not change much.
What that means you need from us
Every item on that list translates into a document request. In practice, a supplier you can verify should be able to give you, without a week of back-and-forth:
- Current certificates with their validity dates, not just logos on a brochure
- The hazard controls applied to the fruit, from grove to packing, in writing
- Per-lot records you can trace from the lot number on the carton back to the grove and the harvest cycle, including residue test results
- A clean compliance history you can check yourself against FDA's public import alert and warning letter listings
- Access for an onsite audit, or a recent third-party audit report, if your FSVP calls for one
- Prompt notice of anything that changes: a new packing site, a new partner factory, a failed test. Those are exactly the events that trigger your reevaluation duty
Three questions that sort suppliers quickly
- If I give you a lot number from last season, how long does it take you to send the grove, harvest date and residue results for it?
- Who in your company handles FSVP requests, and what time zone are they in?
- Have you ever had a shipment detained by FDA, and what happened?
The first answer tells you whether the records exist. The second tells you whether you will get them in time. The third tells you whether the supplier is honest about it.
This is a plain-language summary of the published regulation, not legal advice. Your FSVP should be designed by your own qualified individual.
Where we stand. Residue control planned at grove level, records kept per grove and per cycle, and traceability retrievable from a lot number. No FDA import detention, no RASFF notification, not once. For US importers, David Ly is our contact in the United States.