President Barack Obama promised Saturday to bolster and reorganize the nation’s fractured food-safety system.

“In the end, food safety is something I take seriously, not just as your president, but as a parent,” Obama said in his weekly address.

The announcement comes at a time when the nation’s food-protection system is being criticized for failing to protect Americans from serious infections. American consumers have struggled with serious outbreaks of salmonella and other infectious diseases, the most recent one being the salmonella outbreak linked to peanut products that led to nine deaths and sickened more than 660 people. It happened just one year after the blood thinner heparin was recalled because it contained a deadly ingredient traced to China.

The incidents have been called a painful reminder of how tragic the consequences can be when food and drug producers act irresponsibly and government is unable to do its job.

Obama said he will ask Congress for $1 billion in new funds to add inspectors and modernize laboratories. He added that the Food and Drug Administration has been underfunded and understaffed in recent years, which left the agency with the resources to inspect just 7,000 of the nation’s 150,000 food processing plants and warehouses each year. “That means roughly 95 percent of them go uninspected,” he said.

“There are certain things only a government can do. And one of those things is ensuring that the foods we eat, and the medicine we take, are safe and do not cause us harm.”