Warning letters
None posted. As of September 7, FDA's warning-letter database shows no letter with a Seafood HACCP subject and an August 2026 issue date. The most recent seafood HACCP letter to an importer is still the May 26 letter to a Houston firm — the one that repeated, word for word, an observation from an August 2019 inspection.
Two letters to food importers were posted with August dates, both under the Foreign Supplier Verification Program rule rather than Part 123: an August 4 letter to a San Antonio importer of fresh peppers and an August 18 letter to a Hayward, California importer of syrup and candy. Neither involves fish or fishery products. They are noted here only because an FSVP letter to a seafood importer would belong in this section, and these are what the month's FSVP letters actually were.
FDA posts letters weeks after it issues them. A letter dated in August can still appear in September, and if one does it will be in the next edition.
Import Alert 16-120 — foreign processors
Three processors were added to the Red List in August. Product from a listed processor is detained without physical examination at entry.
August 6 — Shandong Ling Xian Food Co., Ltd., Rizhao, Shandong, China. Frozen ready-to-eat imitation crab meat, sticks and flakes. FDA's listing: "Identified violations include: 21 CFR 123.6(c)(4) – inadequate monitoring procedures, 21 CFR 123.6(c)(7) – inadequate monitoring records, 21 CFR 123.7(a) - no corrective action taken, and 21 CFR 123.6(c)(3) - inadequate critical limit."
August 13 — Toshkee Misr for Seafood, Qena, Egypt. Whole tilapia, raw frozen, and ready-to-eat cooked crawfish tail meat, frozen and vacuum packed, both listed under aquaculture-harvested product codes. FDA's listing cites seven sections, beginning with "21 CFR 123.6(c)(1) - HACCP plan does not list hazards that are reasonably likely to occur" and "21 CFR 123.6(c)(2) – HACCP plan does not list one or more critical control points that are necessary for each of the identified food safety hazards", through to "21 CFR 123.11(c)- Not maintaining sanitation control records."
August 13 — Hwangto Co., Ltd., Busan, Republic of Korea. Ready-to-eat seasoned dried filefish. FDA's listing: "21 CFR 123.6(c)(1), failure to include all food safety hazards. The firm's revised HACCP plan includes pathogenic bacteria growth – temperature abuse, allergens, and metal inclusion; but fails to include C. botulinum toxin, S. aureus toxin in the HACCP plan for dried seasoned RTE grilled seafood."
Removals: none shown. The alert page lists what is on the Red List, not what has come off it.
Import Alert 16-119 — importer and processor pairs
No entries dated in August. The list was last published July 27, when two Italian processors — one for frozen cooked clams, one for frozen bullet mackerel — were added, each paired with the same US importer. Removals: none shown.
What this means for your file
If you buy from any of the three processors above, the pair is the problem, not the paperwork. A processor on 16-120 has had its HACCP plan read by FDA and found short. Whatever affirmative step you hold for that supplier-product — an English copy of the plan and a guarantee, a certificate, lot records — is now a step resting on a plan FDA has already written up. Look at the row, and at what the step was.
Two of the three listings are the Guide check. Hwangto's revised plan was rejected because it omitted Clostridium botulinum and Staphylococcus aureus toxin formation for a dried, seasoned, ready-to-eat product; Toshkee's because it "does not list hazards that are reasonably likely to occur" for farmed tilapia and crawfish. Those are hazards the Fish and Fishery Products Hazards and Controls Guidance, Fourth Edition, June 2022, lists by species and process. An importer holding either plan under step (d) would have been holding a plan with a Guide hazard missing — which is the condition FDA's import compliance program says makes the affirmative step inadequate.
A quiet month for letters is not a signal. Enforcement here is thin and lumpy: four importer letters in the first five months of 2026, then none posted for three. The cost of a letter, when it comes, is the same in a quiet year. If a supplier's plan has not been read against the Guide for its species and process since the last edition, that is the thing to do this month.
Sources, all read September 7, 2026: FDA warning-letter database; Import Alert 16-119 (published 07/27/2026); Import Alert 16-120 (published 09/02/2026, entries dated August 2026); FDA Compliance Program 7303.844. Verify is a documentation tool. It does not determine or certify compliance with any regulation, and it is not legal advice.