As we previously blogged, on January 31, 2023, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed a change in the Agency’s structure to create the FDA Human Foods Program following an independent review which, among other things, recommended structural changes within FDA to improve the Agency’s coordinated decision making.

The proposed redesign consolidates the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN), Office of Food Policy and Response (OFPR), and certain functions of the Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA) into the Human Foods Program (HFP). 

On June 27, 2023, the FDA announced the following proposals to further enhance the coordination, prevention, and response activities across the FDA:

• Bestowing oversite control of all budget and resource allocations of HFP and ORA resources to the new HFP Deputy Commissioner;

• Merging ORA compliance function with HFP;

• Realigning eight ORA Human and Animal Food laboratories into HFP;

• Transitioning and merging certain functions under the Office of Security and Emergency Management;

• Unifying state and local food safety partnership functions and certain aspects of international food safety partnerships into an Office of Integrated Food Safety System Partnerships in the HFP; and

• Realigning resources and personnel within ORA to support HFP.

Finally, the FDA also released graphics of the new proposed structure for ORA and HFP for clarity. 

FDA aims to finalize its reorganization proposal for both ORA and the unified HFP this fall.