Question

what is the U.S. laws governing importation of foods and food products?

what are the Major importers of foods and food products to the United States, including the foods and food products imported by each respective nation

Answer 1

Food and Drug Administration of USA ( FDA) is responsible for protecting and promoting public health which falls under the United States Department of Health and Human services. It applies laws which supervises and controls food safety norms for domestic as well as imported food products. Laws in USA for importation of food products follows the same rules and regulations that are followed for domestic products. The labelling on imported food products needs to be mentioned in English so that it can give true information about a food product. Imported food products are checked and examined rigorously by FDA and certify a food product as safe to enter when it passes through all the food safety norms of the country. FDA needs to be informed prior to the importation of food into the country as the agency could carry out their inspection effectively at US ports before allowing the food product to enter into the country's market. FDA reserves the right to reject the entry of any imported food products if it is not informed beforehand. Department of Agriculture in the country inspects all the dairy products sold in the country produced in the domestic or foreign market. Imported Products which fail to meet all the food safety regulation norms of the country are destroyed or sent back to the origin countries.

As the demand for food products in America are increasing daily, the country needs to import food items due to lesser supply in the domestic market and not growing all food items domestically. The main imported food items in the country are as follows-

Fruits and Nuts:- Costa Rica and Mexico top the list of fresh fruit exporters to the USA due to their physical proximity to the country. USA even import fresh fruits from Canada, Chile, Peru etc also. Fruits like bananas, apples, avocadoes from Australia, honeydew melons, mangoes etc are imported from India, South Africa, Brazil etc.

Brazil, South America, Vietnam, Guatemalan etc are the countries which provide nuts, cashews etc to the country.

Seafoods:- U.S requires billions of dollars of seafood every year which is imported from China. China sends seafoods like salmon, sardines, shrimp, tilapia etc in frozen mode as it does not diminish the perceived quality of the product.

Red Meat:- The preference of US consumers for variety of red meats and increasing income makes USA to import pork, beefs, lamb, mutton etc from Canada, New Zealand, Uruguay, Australia in larger amount. Though the country produces greater amount of beef and exports it, still it depends on others to fulfil the demands of domestic market for red meats.