The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA), Office of Partnership (OP), is announcing the availability of cooperative agreements to be awarded under Limited Competition to State, local, territorial, or tribal retail food regulatory programs. The intended outcome of this FOA is to advance efforts for a nationally integrated food safety system through the conformance with and advancement of the Voluntary National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards (VNRFRPS or Retail Program Standards). The VNRFRPS apply to the operation and management of a retail food regulatory program that is focused on the reduction of risk factors known to contribute to foodborne illness and the promotion of industry action to achieve active managerial control of these risk factors. The Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) Food and Feed Safety Division (FFSD) licenses and inspects approximately 8,900 food facilities including 7,000 retail food establishments in Minnesota and delegates and oversees retail food inspection authority to seven local health agencies in the state. The seven local health agencies license and inspect approximately 2,200 retail facilities under a delegation agreement with MDA. The FFSD has a dedicated Retail Food Program responsible for retail food licensing, compliance, and inspection activities. The Retail Food Program has twenty-eight staff members including a program manager, four food supervisors, and twenty-three field inspectors. Eighteen of the twenty-three field inspection staff have been hired into the program since November 2015. FFSD has an additional twenty staff that fully or partially support the Retail Food Program in administrative capacities. The MDA, as part of this application, will create a comprehensive Strategic Plan that outlines the milestones and goals needed to conduct educational sessions on Standards 2,3,4,6 and 8 along with assessments for the local health agencies with delegated authority to conduct retail inspections from MDA to promote and support conformance with the standards. Other goals of the strategic plan include standardization of field inspection staff as required by Standard 2 and active participation in the Conference for Food Protection (CFP).
The Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) seeks to conduct educational sessions on Standards 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8 with assessments for local health agencies with delegated authority to conduct retail inspections from MDA to promote and support greater conformance with the standards. Other goals include standardization of field inspection staff to provide industry with consistent inspections to reduce the occurrence of contributing risk factors associated with foodborne illness and participation in the Conference for Food Protection (CFP) to promote continuous improvement and advancement of the VNRFRPS.
