The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA) has announced the availability of cooperative agreements to be awarded under Limited Competition to facilitate long-term improvements to the national integrated food safety system by building the capacity and capability of food safety entities to take appropriate action in response to a recall of food or notification of imported food that poses a serious threat to public health or animal health. FDA is awarding these cooperative agreements under its authority in section 1009 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act), as amended by section 210 of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011 (FSMA). As set forth in section 1009(b)(1), entities eligible for grants under section 1009 are States, localities, territories, Indian tribes, and nonprofit food safety training entities. As a state food and feed regulatory entity, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) is eligible to apply for this Cooperative Agreement. MDA seeks to improve capability and capacity to respond to food and feed products that pose a serious public health or animal health threat by developing innovative strategies to manage response to import notices and recalls and coordinate response with other food safety entities. This will be accomplished by establishing business requirements for a recall response management and collaboration system based on the needs of local, state, and federal food safety entities;conducting a baseline assessment and establishing metrics for assessing a recall response;measuring and comparing the recall responses pre- and post-system implementation;developing a web-based response system;developing training materials for recall response management using the system;completing a data exchange between the system and FDA;hosting a multi-jurisdictional tabletop exercise using the system;and disseminating a system implementation guide, associated training materials, and best practice guidance to other food safety entities across the nation. MDA is broadly engaged in state and national efforts to improve the food safety system. It will employ these partnerships with federal, state, and local food safety entities and academic institutions;professional associations (AFDO, AFFCO, NEHA, among others); state initiatives like the Minnesota Food Safety and Defense Task Force;and national initiatives, including the FDA Rapid Response Teams and Partnership for Food Protection, to make these capability and capacity improvements and to share advances in these areas nation-wide.
The Minnesota Department of Agriculture seeks to improve capability and capacity to respond to food and feed products that pose a serious public health or animal health threat by developing innovative strategies to manage response to import notices and recalls and coordinate response with other food safety entities. The advances gained through this Cooperative Agreement will allow federal, state, and local entities to more quickly and effectively to notify consumers of unsafe foods and ensure those foods are removed from the marketplace.
