On Jan. 23, 2026, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Human Foods Program (HFP) released its priority deliverables for 2026, as part of its Make America Healthy Again agenda. While ensuring the safety of the foods they produce is the responsibility of industry, FDA oversees microbiological food safety efforts and strives to ensure that foodborne illness is prevented in the first place. In 2026, HFP will further that goal by prioritizing the following key deliverables related to food traceability and food code and retail program standards:

“Food Traceability: FDA will engage quarterly with stakeholders, and educate covered entities (including farms, restaurants, retail establishments, and warehouses distributing to retail food establishments and restaurants) to ensure that such entities can comply with the Food Traceability Rule by the compliance date. Additionally, HFP will facilitate a tabletop exercise (involving producers, processors, distributors, retailers, and technology partners) to test traceability readiness and will educate stakeholders, including small retailers and restaurants by, among other activities, providing explanatory Q&As to help industry implement traceability measures. Implementation of the Food Traceability Rule will enable FDA and industry to identify and remove contaminated food from the marketplace more quickly.”

“Food Code and Retail Program Standards: The FDA will release an updated Food Code in 2026, providing all levels of government with a scientifically sound technical and legal basis for regulating the retail and food service industries. Local, state, territorial, and tribal regulators use the FDA Food Code as a model to update their own food safety rules and to provide national consistency in food regulatory policy. The forthcoming Food Code update will reflect the latest updates to retail food science, best practices, and current data on retail foodborne outbreaks. In 2026, HFP will also develop a companion Retail Program Standards manual, which is considered the standard in retail food safety program management to help state, local, territorial, and tribal agencies improve their food safety programs.” Read more here.