History of the Food and Drug Administration
In June 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt signed into law the Food and Drug Act, also known as the "Wiley Act" after its chief advocate. The Act prohibited, under penalty of seizure of goods, the interstate transport of food which had been "adulterated," with that term referring to the addition of fillers of reduced "quality or strength," coloring to conceal "damage or inferiority," formulation with additives "injurious to health," or the use of "filthy, decomposed, or putrid" substances. The act applied similar penalties to the interstate marketing of "adulterated" drugs, in which the "standard of strength, quality, or purity" of the active ingredient was not either stated clearly on the label or listed in the "United States Pharmacopoeia" or the "National Formulary". The act also banned "misbranding" of food and drugs. The responsibility for examining food and drugs for such "adulteration" or "misbranding" was given to Wiley's USDA Bureau of Chemistry.
Retailer Owned Food Distributors &amp; Associates
Founded in 1962 by cooperative food distributors in the southeastern United States, the original organization’s name was Southeastern Food Cooperative Association (SFCA). In the 1980s, the organization expanded geographically out of the southeast, and in 1988 the name of the organization changed to Retailer Owned Food Distributors and Associates. In 1996, the organization incorporated as a cooperative. Before that it had been a nonprofit association. In 2012, ROFDA commemorated their 50th anniversary.