The reintroduction of widespread tariffs by the United States is having a profound—though often underestimated—impact on the safety and integrity of the global food system. As new import duties reshape sourcing decisions, disrupt trade flows, and reconfigure supply chains, food safety authorities and businesses worldwide are being forced to reassess how they manage risk, validate suppliers, and ensure compliance.
This report examines how the latest U.S. tariff measures—particularly those introduced under President Trump in 2025—are influencing food safety across the United States, the European Union, China, and other major markets. It focuses not on economic or political implications, but on the structural and operational challenges now emerging within the global food safety landscape.
Number of incidents sourced from FDA mentions within the United States over the past 24 months. Data sourced via SGS Digicomply Horizon Scanning.
While trade policy does not directly regulate food safety, structural disruptions in sourcing and logistics can have indirect consequences—and the data may already reflect this. The chart above shows the number of FDA-sourced food safety incidents reported within the U.S. over the past two years.
Around spring 2025, shortly after the latest wave of tariffs was introduced, incident mentions began rising sharply—culminating in the highest spike recorded over the full period. Though causality cannot be claimed with certainty, this correlation aligns with known risk drivers: supplier substitution, overstrained domestic production, and increased inspection of re-routed goods.
With incident trends now steeply climbing, food businesses and regulators should stay alert and proactive in assessing their exposure.
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Recent tariff increases on thousands of imported products—including agricultural commodities, processed foods, and food-related chemicals—have triggered rapid changes in global sourcing behavior.
Many food manufacturers have shifted away from long-established international suppliers, either due to higher landed costs or uncertainties in customs processing. These shifts often occur under time pressure, with limited ability to fully audit or qualify new suppliers in advance. This creates elevated risk in several areas:
Substitution of unknown suppliers in countries with different safety protocols or lower transparency.
Reduced audit frequency or depth during supplier onboarding.
Increased reliance on brokers and intermediaries, which can obscure traceability and documentation integrity.
In high-volume ingredient categories (e.g., oils, grains, spices, vitamins), buyers are now sourcing from markets they have not historically worked with—raising the probability of misaligned quality standards or non-conformance with specifications.
Tariffs often force importers to reroute products through alternative countries or ports to avoid cost increases. This can result in longer transit times and more touchpoints in the chain of custody.
For perishable products and temperature-sensitive ingredients, such deviations significantly increase the likelihood of:
Temperature abuse during shipping or handling.
Product degradation due to longer storage intervals.
Packaging integrity issues from excessive repacking or manual handling.
Cross-contamination risks at interim transfer or storage hubs.
These supply chain extensions also complicate batch traceability, especially when products are repacked, relabeled, or consolidated before entering the destination country. Any incident (e.g., microbial contamination, undeclared allergens) becomes harder to investigate and contain.
Tariff-induced price gaps between markets create economic incentives for fraud, especially in high-value food categories. Examples of this include:
Origin mislabeling, where products are falsely declared as originating from a non-tariff country to avoid duties.
Ingredient dilution, such as mixing high-value oils with lower-grade alternatives.
Product substitution, including undeclared species in seafood, or cheaper sweeteners in juice concentrates.
Document falsification, including fake certificates of analysis or origin.
Food fraud directly undermines safety when adulterants include unapproved additives, allergens, or when falsified documents prevent effective recalls. Many such practices also bypass inspection regimes, increasing the risk of non-compliance with hygiene and safety standards.
As tariffs reduce reliance on imports, many food companies are ramping up domestic production or sourcing. This rapid scaling often introduces unanticipated strain on domestic food safety systems.
Key areas of concern include:
Overloaded facilities operating at maximum throughput without updated hazard controls.
Labor shortages or untrained staff due to sudden production expansion.
Sanitation gaps, especially during multi-shift operation or facility retrofitting.
Inadequate revalidation of CCPs (critical control points) under new formulations or volumes.
If risk assessments and food safety plans are not revisited during these transitions, manufacturers may inadvertently create new vulnerabilities—even when sourcing "closer to home".
Trade disputes often lead to reduced regulatory cooperation between countries. This undermines harmonization efforts and can create:
Conflicting import tolerances, particularly for pesticide residues or processing aids.
Non-aligned labeling or traceability requirements, increasing compliance complexity.
Delays in mutual recognition of food safety certifications, forcing duplicate inspections or paperwork.
This fragmentation introduces friction not only in trade but also in cross-border recall coordination, hazard communication, and incident response. In the worst cases, food may be safe by one jurisdiction’s standard but non-compliant in another—resulting in detentions, rejections, or recalls.
Food companies must now operate in a trade environment where risk is dynamic, supply routes are volatile, and regulatory expectations are diverging. Specific priorities include:
Supplier requalification workflows: especially for fast-onboarded vendors in new geographies.
Enhanced fraud monitoring programs, including analytical testing and digital traceability.
Cold chain resilience and mapping: ensuring temperature control across extended routes.
Scenario planning for sudden tariff impositions or retaliatory actions that could block key inputs.
Horizon scanning for regulatory divergence across markets they serve.
Additionally, companies should review their vulnerability assessments under FSMA (U.S.), and analogous frameworks in other markets, to ensure that tariff-related disruptions are explicitly considered.
The return of tariff-based trade policy is unlikely to reverse course in the near term. As such, food safety professionals should anticipate continued volatility. Structural trends likely to shape the risk landscape include:
Supply regionalization: more food inputs will be sourced from within allied or “friendly” countries, possibly at the expense of known, high-standard sources.
Parallel regulatory regimes: divergence in standards between U.S., EU, and China may continue to deepen.
Technology-led validation: blockchain, isotope testing, and origin verification tools will become more central to fraud prevention.
Risk transfer: disruptions may shift safety risks upstream (e.g. to farms) or downstream (e.g. in retail or foodservice), requiring full-chain visibility.
In an era of systemic trade uncertainty, food safety will depend not only on compliance—but on foresight.