The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced the establishment of the Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) audit service for produce distribution centers. The GMP audit service will replace the current section of the USDA Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and Good Handling Practices (GHP) audit that applies to distribution centers. The new GMP audit service will be available for AMS audits starting June 1, 2022.
The GAP&GHP audit program Part 6- Wholesale Distribution Center/Terminal Warehouses will be discontinued on July 31, 2022.
The new GMP program will verify the consistent safety of products by focusing on people, premises, processes, products, and procedures. AMS will augment the GMP audits with Food Defense audits, which verify measures that operations take to minimize the risk of tampering or other malicious criminal actions against the food under their control.
The GMP audits will be performed by either USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) or Federal/State auditors following the same protocols as current GAP audit services.
Cost will be similar to the performance of a GAP audit and will include travel costs associated with the audit. The current audit fee is $115/hour.
Additionally, a new Food Defense audit service for facilities will be released in conjunction with the AMS GMP audit.
Audit requests can be made by contacting the Audit Services Branch at 202-720-5021, or scaudits@usda.gov.
AMS will host a webinar about the new program in the coming months.
For more information audit services, please visit https://www.ams.usda.gov/services/auditing/gmp. For more information, please contact Donna Burke-Fonda, at 202-631-1496 or donna.burke-fonda@usda.gov.
