Foreign Supplier Verification Program · 21 CFR Part 1, Subpart L
Portmark chases your foreign suppliers, in their own language, for every certificate, audit and lab result your FSVP file needs. Then translates them, checks each one against the facility that actually ships you food, and tracks every expiry date.
Start with one supplier, freeNo account, no contract, nothing to install. Reply with one supplier and we begin.
| Third-party audit certificateexpired 14 Mar 2026 | Expired |
| Agricultural water testingrequested 3× since 12 May | Missing |
| Pesticide residue COA, lot AV-2608issued 02 Aug 2026 | Current |
| Harvest & packing proceduresrenews 11 Jan 2027 | Current |
| Produce Safety Rule attestationexpires in 24 days | Renew |
An FSVP inspection is records-based: an investigator asks for your supplier file and reads what you produce. The documents live with your suppliers. Getting them out is the work.
| What the file needs | What Portmark does |
|---|---|
| Documents obtained from each foreign supplier | We email your suppliers directly, in their language, and follow up on a set cadence until the document arrives, or until we can show in writing that it can't be had. |
| Records legible and in English | Every original is filed with an English translation alongside it, so nothing has to be found and translated while an inspector waits. |
| Evidence that matches the actual supplier | We check each document against the facility that ships you food. A certificate in the parent company's name is the commonest mismatch and the easiest to miss. |
| Current, unexpired documents | Expiry dates are read off the documents themselves. We start asking for the replacement before it lapses, so the file doesn't drift out of date again. |
| Determinations and sign-off by your qualified individual | Not us. This is yours. We hand your qualified individual a complete, current file so their review is judgment, not archaeology. |
The rule itself is not the hard part. Your qualified individual already knows it. The hard part is that the evidence sits with your suppliers, in their formats and their languages, and it expires.
Certificates lapse. A supplier changes a production site and nobody sends the new audit. Emails go unanswered for weeks. That chasing is administrative work and nobody's job, so it goes on a spreadsheet, and the spreadsheet quietly falls behind. Then an inspector asks for the file.
The smallest possible commitment: one supplier, no paperwork from you.
Their name and what you import from them. That is the whole onboarding.
We chase the supplier, organise what comes back, and show you what is still outstanding.
If the file is worth having, we keep every supplier current. If not, you keep the file anyway.
Portmark is run by Charaf Azzaoui. One person, not a call centre and not a subcontracted back office. You deal with the same person who writes to your suppliers. That is a limit on how many importers we can take on, and it is also the reason the chasing actually gets done.