Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Hamburg said: “The system we are now deploying is called PREDICT – the Predictive Risk-Based Evaluation for Dynamic Import Compliance Targeting. It is a sophisticated information technology system developed for use by our border inspection operations, that will allow us to monitor products at the port of entry more reliably and to target shipments for inspection that pose the greatest risk.”
The PREDICT system is due to be running across the United States by spring or early summer.
It is estimated that 15 to 20 percent of the US food supply originates abroad and, with only about one percent of all food imports currently being inspected, this new system is intended to target resources toward those products that pose the greatest contamination threat.