The Food and Drug Administration has issued warning letters to three food importers in Massachusetts and New Jersey after inspections found they failed to develop, maintain, or follow required Foreign Supplier Verification Programs, known as FSVPs, for the foods they bring into the U.S. market.

The letters target a compliance gap that sits at the center of the import supply chain. An FSVP is the importer's documented program verifying that foreign suppliers produce food meeting U.S. safety standards. For importers, the absence of a program is not a paperwork technicality. It means the company cannot demonstrate that its foreign suppliers are producing food to the same safety standard as domestic manufacturers, and it exposes the importer to enforcement action on every product it brings across the border.

The FDA's findings in these three cases fall into a well-established enforcement pattern. Importers have been required to maintain FSVPs since 2016, when the Foreign Supplier Verification Program rule under the Food Safety Modernization Act took effect. Warning letters citing missing or incomplete programs remain among the most common FSVP-related enforcement actions the agency takes, and they frequently follow inspections in which the importer could produce no verification records at all.

The timeline built into the warning letter process gives the companies a defined window to act. Business owners have 15 days to respond to FDA warning letters. Companies often have already had months or even years to correct problems before a warning letter is issued, since the letters generally follow inspections and prior opportunity to remedy violations. Portions of the letters are often redacted from public view, and some letters are not posted for public view until weeks or months after they are sent.

For the three importers, the practical stakes extend beyond the response deadline. A warning letter puts a company on the record as out of compliance with FSVP regulations. If the violations are not corrected, the agency can escalate — with import alerts and placement on import detention lists among the tools available, actions that can effectively halt an importer's supply of foreign product.

The cases also serve as a check for the broader importer community. The FDA conducts FSVP inspections as part of its routine enforcement activities, and importers without documented programs face the same exposure. The 15-day response clock applies once a letter arrives, but the underlying expectation — a functioning verification program for every foreign supplier — applies continuously.

The agency has not yet disclosed further details beyond the redacted warning letters, and the importers' responses will determine whether the cases close at the warning-letter stage or move toward escalated enforcement.