On 1 August 2012, the United States Department of Agriculture made substantial changes to the entry requirements for tomatoes "from countries infested with tomato leafminer." However, in order to soften the criteria to export the product to this North American country, the Obama Administration is preparing a new set of rules to come into force in the next few months.
The US Government's goal is to prevent foodborne illnesses, which cause an average of 3,000 deaths per year. This is what motivated the introduction of stricter regulations.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced two new proposals on its website, based on the FDA's Food Safety Modernisation Law and will be open for comments from the North American public during the first 120 days. Recent events, such as the melon listeriosis outbreak which killed 33 people in 2011 or the food poisoning through eggs and peanut butter which affected thousands in 2010, led US legislators to implement rules requiring the FDA to apply stricter food safety regulations.
Despite this, there is a way to export agrifood products to the US bypassing these strict new regulations. Last month, during the seminar 'Opportunities for Kosher-certified food and beverages in the United States', an agreement signed by the Federation of Jewish Communities in Spain and the Orthodox Union, the largest Kosher food certifier, was announced, through which Spanish firms can certify their products before they are exported. The goal is to promote Kosher food exports, especially to the US; the world's second largest consumer of these products, after Israel.
Source: Elalmeria