Resources

Regulatory explainers, written for people who have to implement them.

No gated whitepapers and no recycled press releases. These are working explanations of the rules we deal with daily — what they require, where they are commonly misread, and what a defensible program looks like. Every topic links back to the primary source.

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Guides
10 published
Subject areas
11 topics
Nature
Educational, not legal advice
Educational content

These guides are educational summaries of published U.S. regulatory requirements. They are not legal advice, are not a substitute for the text of a regulation or for guidance from your regulatory authority, and applicability depends on your specific products, processes, size and jurisdiction. SURU Compliance is not a law firm; legal questions should be referred to qualified counsel.

Latest guide

FSMA & Preventive Controls7 min readReviewed August 17, 2026

Preventive controls or HACCP: which framework actually governs your facility

One of the most expensive early mistakes in food compliance is building the wrong framework. Preventive controls, seafood HACCP and juice HACCP are not interchangeable, and a customer requirement is not the same thing as a regulatory requirement.

Read the guide

Key points

  • Part 117 preventive controls, Part 123 seafood HACCP and Part 120 juice HACCP are largely allocated by product category, not layered.
  • Retail food establishments are generally regulated under a locally adopted food code rather than by the preventive controls rule.
  • Exemptions and modified requirements are extensive; applicability depends on your activities and sales figures.
  • A customer or certification requirement for HACCP is separate from, and additional to, whatever FDA rule governs you.

Regulatory updates

What changed recently.

Short, dated notes on the things clients most often have out of date. Where a change has been proposed but not finalized, it is described that way — because a proposal is not a rule.

Every entry below is general educational information, last reviewed August 24, 2026. None of it is legal advice, and none of it is a determination about your operation. Confirm anything you plan to act on against the issuing agency’s current text.

Renewal window — October 1 to December 31, 2026

Food facility registration: 2026 is a biennial renewal year

Under section 415 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, food facility registrations are renewed during the period beginning October 1 and ending December 31 of each even-numbered year. 2026 is an even-numbered year, so the window runs October 1 to December 31, 2026.

There is no FDA registration fee, and FDA does not issue a certificate of registration. Anything sold to you as an official registration certificate, or any invoice for a renewal fee, is not coming from FDA.

The practical work is smaller than most people expect: confirm the registration still describes the facility accurately, confirm the U.S. agent details for a foreign facility, and complete the renewal inside the window.

General educational information · Reviewed August 24, 2026 · Verify against the issuing agency before you act on it.

FDA — food facility registrationfda.gov (opens in a new tab)
  • Extension proposed August 7, 2025 — not finalized

    FSMA 204 traceability: the date in the rule has not changed

    The compliance date in the Food Traceability Rule, 21 CFR Part 1 Subpart S, remains January 20, 2026.

    FDA published a proposed rule on August 7, 2025 that would extend that date by 30 months, to July 20, 2028. That proposal has not been finalized. A proposed rule does not change the date currently written into the regulation.

    Separately, Congress restricted the use of appropriated funds to enforce the rule before July 20, 2028. A restriction on enforcement funding is a different thing from a moved compliance date, and it does not amend the rule.

    So do not treat "the deadline is now July 20, 2028" as settled — it is not what the rule says. Confirm the current position for your own products and activities with FDA before you re-plan a program around either date.

    General educational information · Reviewed August 24, 2026 · Verify against the issuing agency before you act on it.

    FDA — FSMA hubfda.gov (opens in a new tab)
  • Human Foods Program reorganization — implemented October 1, 2024

    ORA is now the Office of Inspections and Investigations

    As part of the Human Foods Program reorganization implemented on October 1, 2024, FDA's Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA) became the Office of Inspections and Investigations (OII).

    For most facilities the effect is naming rather than substance. It is still worth a pass through your inspection-readiness procedure, your visitor and escort instructions and your training material, so the language your team is working from matches the credentials they will be shown.

    General educational information · Reviewed August 24, 2026 · Verify against the issuing agency before you act on it.

    FDA — Warning Letters and enforcementfda.gov (opens in a new tab)
  • FASTER Act — effective January 1, 2023

    Sesame is the ninth major food allergen

    Under the FASTER Act, sesame became a major food allergen effective January 1, 2023. The nine are milk, egg, fish, Crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, wheat, peanuts, soybeans and sesame.

    Tree nuts, fish and Crustacean shellfish must be declared by the specific type or species.

    This one is included because out-of-date internal documents outlive the rule change. If your allergen matrix, label review checklist or supplier questionnaire still says eight, it is wrong.

    General educational information · Reviewed August 24, 2026 · Verify against the issuing agency before you act on it.

    FDA — food allergiesfda.gov (opens in a new tab)
  • Published January 19, 2023 (88 FR 3548) — compliance date March 19, 2024

    USDA organic: Strengthening Organic Enforcement is fully in effect

    The Strengthening Organic Enforcement final rule was published on January 19, 2023 at 88 FR 3548, became effective March 20, 2023, and carried a compliance and implementation date of March 19, 2024. It is fully in effect.

    It significantly reduced the exemptions from organic certification. Many brokers, traders and importers that previously handled organic product without certification now require it.

    It also requires NOP Import Certificate data for organic imports, and requires certifiers to conduct unannounced inspections of at least 5 percent of the operations they certify.

    Certification is issued by a USDA-accredited certifying agent, not by USDA directly and not by a consultant.

    General educational information · Reviewed August 24, 2026 · Verify against the issuing agency before you act on it.

    USDA AMS — Strengthening Organic Enforcementams.usda.gov (opens in a new tab)
  • In effect since July 24, 2022

    “UNK” is no longer accepted as an FSVP entry identifier

    Since July 24, 2022, the “UNK” placeholder is no longer accepted at entry. The FSVP importer's name, the importer's email address and a unique facility identifier recognized by FDA — currently a valid DUNS number — must be transmitted, or CBP rejects the entry line.

    This fails at the filing desk rather than in your food safety program, which is why it keeps catching importers with perfectly good FSVP files. Confirm with your broker which entity is being declared as the FSVP importer on each line, and that the DUNS number on record is current and matches that entity.

    General educational information · Reviewed August 24, 2026 · Verify against the issuing agency before you act on it.

    FDA — FSVP final rulefda.gov (opens in a new tab)
  • Scheme owner publications — position as at August 24, 2026

    Certification schemes: which edition sites are audited against now

    SQF Edition 10 was published in March 2026, but audits are expected to transition to it around January 2027. Sites are currently audited against Edition 9.

    BRCGS Global Standard Food Safety Issue 9 remains current. Issue 10 is in development and has not been published.

    Editions and transition dates are set by the scheme owner. GFSI benchmarks schemes and does not set audit dates, and your certification body applies the edition the scheme owner has made effective. Confirm the applicable edition and your audit date with your certification body before rewriting a manual against a new one.

    General educational information · Reviewed August 24, 2026 · Verify against the issuing agency before you act on it, and confirm with the scheme owner and your accredited certification body.

Browse by topic

Eleven subject areas.

Each topic lists the guides we have published on it and the primary sources behind them. Where we have not written a guide yet, the topic points straight at the agency rather than at a placeholder.

FDA, FSMA & 21 CFR reference

A searchable index of the Title 21 Parts that touch a food business — Parts 1, 7, 11, 101, 111, 117, 120, 123 and the rest — plus the core FSMA rules, each linked to its official eCFR source.

Open the reference

All guides

Browse the library.

Each guide ends with the primary sources we would send you to next, so you can verify anything here against the regulation itself. Every guide is listed below; the filter narrows it.

Showing 10 of 10 guides.

Official sources

Go to the agency.

24 links to primary U.S. government material — the rule hubs, the regulation text on eCFR, and the enforcement records agencies publish themselves.

SURU Compliance does not control any of these sites and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of FDA, USDA, CBP or any other agency. Pages move and rules are amended — the issuing agency’s current text is the authority, not this list and not our summary of it. All links open in a new tab.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Rule hubs, registration and entry systems, and the enforcement records FDA publishes itself.

eCFR — the regulations themselves

When a summary and a regulation disagree, the regulation wins. These are the current, official texts.

U.S. Department of Agriculture

Organic certification is administered by USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service and issued by accredited certifying agents.

Other primary sources

Where rulemaking is published, where entries are cleared, and the model code most retail jurisdictions adopt.

Placeholder — for SURU to complete

Case studies and client references

This section is reserved for real, verifiable client work — anonymised case studies, references and permitted logos. It has been left intentionally empty rather than filled with invented results. Supply the material and it will be published here with the same structure as the guides above.

Questions the guides did not answer

Ask us the specific version of your question.

General explainers only go so far. If you need to know whether a rule applies to your product, your process and your jurisdiction, that is a conversation rather than an article.

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SURU Compliance is a regulatory consulting practice. We are not a government agency, a certification body, or a law firm, and we do not provide legal advice or guarantee regulatory outcomes.