Montana Over the next five years the Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS) will be working to implement Standards 1, 2, 3, and 4 of the Voluntary National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards (VNRFRPS) in order to improve and protect the health of Montanans by creating conditions for health living. DPHHS will build local regulatory agencies into each of our Standards so that they can easily be applied or used at the county level thereby facilitating county regulatory authorities in meeting each standard. In addition to building county needs into the state standards DPHHS hopes to use funds from this grant to incentivize counties to participate in the voluntary national program standards. Incentives include a free for use electronic inspection form, computers if a county chooses to use the electronic form, and scholarships to attend trainings with priority given to agencies enrolled in the Program Standards. A state wide training database will be implemented to assist counties in tracking their progress in Standard 2. While also allowing the state to track training needs and actively reach out to local agencies or areas within the state where training is lacking. The goal of this project is to create trained, standardized inspectors who use substantially similar forms and perform risk based inspections across the State of Montana.
The Department of Public Health and Human Services Food and Consumer Safety Section will develop the first four of the retail food standards over the next five years. Each standard will be developed to facilitate local jurisdictions attempts to meet the voluntary retail food standards. In meeting each standard and making it easier for local regulatory agencies to do the same regulatory oversight will be improved, operator expectations of inspections will be clear, and the health of Montanans will be better protected.
