4 aspects to consider to export to US

If you want to export to US food and/or beverage, you must know some information that you have to consider. The first thing that you have to know is about the existence of FDA (Food and Drugs Administration), which is the official organism responsible of the regulation of foods, beverages, medicines, cosmetics, etc, in order to take care of the public health.

As you know that food and beverages are FDA-regulated products, the next step is to know how to proceed to import them. Here you have 4 aspects to consider to export to US:

Your importation process begins with CBP (Customs and Border Protection): you must comply with CBP rules, requirements, and processes. For this and other reasons, it is interesting to contract the services of a customs broker or entry filer, because they are the only persons authorized to act as agents for importers. Customs brokers are trained and licensed to facilitate the importation of goods into the US under applicable US laws for importers.

When entry is made with CBP, importers or their customs brokers will include the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) code among the other declarations in the entry. The HTS is a code used to procure the applicable tariff rates and statistical categories for all merchandise imported into the United States. To determine your HTS code, search on the US International Trade Commission HTS page.

The HTS code for your product will most likely be associated with a FD Flag. This flag acts as indicator to your customs broker/entry filer that your product needs to be transmitted to FDA for review.

Information Required

When the HTS code indicates that the product is FDA-regulated, submission of information to FDA is requires. You can do it by electronic or manual (paper) submissions. FDA will use the information available to determine the admissibility of the articles offered for import.

Entry Review

All imported shipments of FDA-regulated products must comply with the same standards as domestic products. Based on the product type and information received, FDA may take one or more of the following actions when reviewing your entry:

Release of the product: this means the product can be distributed into de US commerce.
Request for additional information: FDA may request specific information related to the product or may determine that an examination/sample collection of the product it is needed.
Request Detention of the product: based upon the review of the entry information, the appearance of a violation may be present. In these situations, FDA’s entry reviewers may request detention of your product based on the appearance of a violation.

This is just the beginning. We will continue trying to provide useful information in order to help you to export to US.