The United States and Canada each inspect a limited amount of imported foods. Table 1 describes selected regional and agency-to-agency arrangements for sharing information on potentially unsafe imports, foods rejected as unsafe, and inspections of foreign plants. Opportunities for Enhancing the Safety of Imported Foods

Opportunities exist for improving the current U.S.-Canada information-sharing system in two areas: (1) shipments of unsafe foods refused at one country’s port of entry and (2) inspections of foreign food-processing plants. The United States and Canada have an opportunity to build on each other’s information about foreign food-processing plants that ship products to North America. Additional information about each country’s experiences in inspecting foreign plants could, in turn, enable the United States and Canada to maximize scarce inspection resources by coordinating such inspections. Recommendations

To better ensure the safety of imported foods and to make better use of limited resources, we recommend that the Secretaries of Agriculture and of Health and Human Services take the lead in developing, in concert with their Canadian counterparts and to the extent necessary with the U.S. Customs Service, a more comprehensive system for sharing crucial information on and coordinating activities for unsafe imported foods.
Why GAO Did This Study

GAO reviewed how the United States and Canada share information on and coordinate activities for shipments of unsafe imported foods, focusing on whether opportunities exist to make better use of limited inspection resources and thereby increase the likelihood that unsafe imported foods would be stopped from entering the United States and Canada.

What GAO Found

GAO found that: (1) U.S. and Canadian food safety officials share information through generally informal agency-to-agency exchanges and cross-border contacts at ports of entry; (2) U.S.-Canadian information sharing efforts focus primarily on shipments of potentially unsafe foods, food shipments refused at one port of entry that may be rerouted to the other port, and inspections of foreign food-processing plants; (3) opportunities exist for the United States and Canada to develop a more comprehensive system for sharing information about shipments of unsafe foods and inspections of foreign food-processing plants and for coordinating these inspections; and (4) improvements in U.S. and Canadian information sharing efforts would enable the two nations to better target their limited inspection resources.