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Food Safety
Section 2 . 5 . 2
7 minutes

Model Food Code

Jacob Gersen

Although the ultimate responsibility for promulgating and enforcing state and local food laws lies with the states and municipalities, the FDA has long taken a leading role by providing guidance to states. Contrary to the conventional view the states provide "laboratories of democracy" in which different laws and policies can be implemented and evaluated, in food law there is a surprising amount of uniformity and consistency. At least since the 1920's with FDA's Guidance on milk pasteurization, FDA has provided guidance on virtually every segment of the retail food industry. In 1993, FDA issued the first full incarnation of its comprehensive Food Code, the most recent incarnation of which was issued in 2013.

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