FSMA Update - Signage and Labeling Requirements for "Qualified Exempt" Farms

Annalisa Hultberg, Extension Educator, Food Safety

If your farm is eligible for an exemption from the FSMA Produce Safety Rule based on where you sell your food and how much you sell, it is not subject to routine inspections or the majority of provisions of the rule. However your farms might have labeling, signage, and recordkeeping requirements that went into effect January 1, 2020. Read more about those requirements here. 

Farm Status Categories for the FSMA Produce Safety Rule

Three categories your farm can fall under for the FSMA Produce Safety Rule

Basically, if your farm is in the middle category, your farm is eligible for an exemption from the FMSA Produce Safety Rule. 

How do you know if your farm is in the middle "qualified exempt" category? If your farm had between $27,528 and $550,551 (these figures are adjusted for inflation and change each year) in food sales per year, averaged over the past three years AND more than 50% of those sales were to a ‘qualified end user’, then your farm is eligible for a qualified exemption from the federal produce safety rule. A qualified end user is basically the consumer, at a farmers' market, CSA, farm stand etc, or a retail establishment like a restaurant or grocery store. (See factsheet at the end of this article for the more complete language and definitions).

If your farm is in this category it will not be subject to routine inspection, and you don't have to follow the majority of the provisions in the rule. 

Labeling and Signage Requirements

If your farm is "qualifed exempt" from the FSMA Produce Safety Rule, you do, however, have labeling, signage, and recordkeeping requirements that went into effect January 1, 2020. These labeling requirements are so that if there is an outbreak traced back to your farm there is a way to connect your farm to the product. 

1.) When a food packaging label is used, you must prominently display on the label the name and the complete business address of the farm where the produce was grown.  The complete business address must include the street address or post office box, city, state, and zip code of the farm.

Strawberries that have a label that includes 

complete business address of where the produce was grown

Photo: Emily Tepe

2.) When you sell produce that doesn’t require a label, you must prominently display the name and complete business address of the farm where the produce was grown at the point of purchase, like at a farmers' market or roadside stand.

This can be on a sign, poster, placard, or on documents delivered with the produce, and can be handwritten or printed. 

In the case of internet sales, this can be an electronic notice.

The complete business address must include the street address or post office box, city, state, and zip code of the farm.

Signs at a farmers' market have the complete name 

and address of the where the produce was grown

Photo: Emily Tepe

Records

You will need to demonstrate that your farm is eligible for the qualified exemption (your rolling 3-year annual average food sales are below $550,551* and the majority of your sales are to qualified end users). 

Examples of acceptable records to prove exemption: 

• Written description of total sales for the day at the farmers’ market with date
• Quicken or other records that show how much you sold to where
• Invoices

Resources to learn more about these requirements for Qualified Exempt farms

• Webinar: FSMA updates and labeling and signage requirements for “Qualified Exempt” produce farms. 30 minute webinar recorded July 28, 2020. Presenters from UMN Extension and MDA Produce Safety Program. 
• New Factsheet from the UMN Extension summarizing labeling, signage and record requirements for farms that are eligible for a qualified exemption
  
  
  
  
• 7 minute video on understanding your status under the FSMA PSR (UMN Extension)
• Templates for recordkeeping to prove your farm is eligible for exemption. See document "Required Records by the FSMA PSR"  (from Produce Safety Alliance) 
• MN Grown Cost share program for label and sign purchasing with logo
• MDA Produce Safety Program - for questions about enforcement and inspections and any other FSMA PSR questions
• FDA Notice Currently, due to COVID 19, FDA has issued enforcement discretion for qualified exempt farms that means that if their sales shift in 2020 there will not be implications or a change in status in 2021 (like if you start selling more than 50% to a wholesale buyer who is not a "qualified end user", you can still be eligible for the exemption). Contact MDA if you have more questions on this. 

More  questions? Minnesota Department of Agriculture Produce Safety Program 651-539-3648 or email ProduceSafety.MDA@state.mn.us or see website above.