Food Screening System to be Purchased by FDA

(MoneyWatch)  The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will purchase a system to screen imported food. NextGov.com is reporting that a system developed at New Mexico State University will be further developed and put into production by the FDA. There is no information as to whether the FDA will contract this development out or do it in-house. Most likely it will be done by a contractor.
Last summer's issue with salmonella in Mexican peppers led to a decision to invest in this system. It was originally thought that the outbreak was linked to tomatoes leading to the waste of food. The software system, Predictive Risk-based Evaluation for Dynamic Import Compliance Targeting (PREDICT), will utilize all source intelligence and information to understand which cargoes should be screened and when. The FDA successfully tested the system at five ports to support the decision to go ahead and produce it.