FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., and Deputy Commissioner Frank Yiannas recently issued a statement addressing new steps included in the President’s 2020 Budget proposal to advance FDA’s food safety program and expand food safety monitoring. The statement details how FDA would use requested funds, if provided by Congress, to build a “smarter, more technologically advanced food safety system” that “stands on the shoulders of the preventive framework” of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). Below we highlight four key aspects of the funding request: (1) state inspection partnerships, (2) imported food inspections, (3) enhanced response to outbreaks of foodborne illness; and (4) premarket safety review of new food ingredients, including those utilizing genome-editing under the agency’s Biotechnology Innovation Action Plan.