FDA inspects only 1-2% of imported food at the border and has completed just 9% of required foreign facility inspections

The FDA physically examines approximately 1-2% of imported food shipments at the border, with laboratory sampling occurring less than 1% of the time. For foreign facility inspections mandated by the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), the FDA's best year was fiscal year 2019, when it inspected just 1,727 foreign facilities — about 9% of the annual target of 19,200. As of mid-2024, the FDA had only 432 investigators for both domestic and foreign inspections, operating at 90% of its authorized staffing level, with a quarter eligible for retirement. Why it matters: When less than 2% of imported food is examined, contaminated shipments routinely enter the U.S. food supply undetected. So consumers eat imported products that have never been tested for pathogens, pesticide residues, or adulteration. So outbreaks like the 2023 WanaBana lead-contaminated applesauce (produced in Ecuador, processed in Ecuador) can poison over 500 children before anyone notices. So the FDA's foreign supplier verification program exists mostly on paper for tens of thousands of facilities. So the entire import safety framework depends on self-policing by foreign manufacturers with minimal consequences for non-compliance. The structural root cause is that FDA's inspection workforce has not scaled with the volume of imported food, which now accounts for approximately 15% of the U.S. food supply, including 50% of fresh fruits and 20% of vegetables. Congress has not funded FDA at the level needed to meet FSMA's own mandated inspection targets. The agency cannot hire fast enough to replace retiring investigators, and foreign inspections require travel budgets, language capabilities, and diplomatic coordination that domestic inspections do not.