SUMMARY: On 7 September 2021, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) published an additional Federal Register Notice (FRN) to provide notice on the mandatory inspection of egg substitutes and freezedried egg products imported into the United States (86 FR 50013). This FRN provides additional information about the timelines that FSIS will follow relative to transitioning jurisdictional authority over and beginning inspection of these products.
This FRN is further to the FRN published by FSIS on 29 October 2020, "Egg Products Inspection Regulations" (85 FR 68640), which, among other things, announced that FSIS would begin exercising jurisdiction over plants that produce egg substitutes and freeze-dried egg products on 30 October 2023. This FRN provides information to foreign countries that already export these products to the United States, as well as countries interested in exporting these products to the United States, about submitting their equivalence documentation to FSIS so that the Agency can begin assessing their eligibility before 30 October 2023.
The text of the FRN (85 FR 68640) published on 29 October 2020, can be accessed at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2020-10-29/pdf/2020-20151.pdf
DATES: Foreign countries currently exporting egg substitutes and/or freeze-dried egg products to the US without an egg products inspection system equivalence determination by FSIS, as well as foreign countries not currently exporting that are interested in exporting such products to the United States under FSIS jurisdiction:
− Must notify FSIS of their intention to export egg substitutes and freeze-dried egg products to the United States (Phase 1) by 30 October 2021;
− Must submit a complete Self-Reporting Tool (SRT), including supporting documentation that demonstrates how a country's egg products inspection system achieves an equivalent level of public health protection to FSIS' egg products inspection system (Phase 2), by 30 April 2022;
− Must have submitted complete SRT responses and supporting documentation to FSIS, and FSIS must have determined that the SRT submission demonstrates that the country maintains an equivalent documented egg products inspection system to FSIS' egg products inspection system (Phase 3) by 30 October 2023.
Foreign countries that currently maintain equivalent egg products inspection systems to FSIS' inspection system for egg products inspection (i.e., Canada and the Netherlands) must submit an updated certified establishment list to include egg substitutes and/or freeze-dried egg products product groups by 1 October 2023, if these countries are currently exporting these products or wish to begin exporting them to the United States after 30 October 2023.
Full text for the FRN (86 FR 50013) issued on 7 September 2021, is available at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/09/07/2021-19264/mandatory-inspection-ofegg-substitutes-and-freeze-dried-egg-products-imported-into-the-united. https://members.wto.org/crnattachments/2021/SPS/USA/21_5684_00_e.pdf
This addendum concern: Modification of content and/or scope of previously notified draft regulation
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