The Association of Food and Drug Officials (AFDO) proposes the creation of an Alliance of StateManufactured Food Program Managers, hereinafter 'Alliance' to advance a national integrated food safetysystem. The purpose of this Alliance would be to facilitate immediate and long-term improvements to thenational food safety system by strengthening interagency collaboration and improving state, local, tribal, orterritorial regulatory and surveillance protection programs for manufactured foods. Achieving theseobjectives will require extensive cooperation and coordination. AFDO will build upon its existing broadnetwork of resources, its community of federal, state, local, tribal and territorial entities built over more than115 years of the association's existence and experience to establish an Alliance, a dedicated network ofmanufactured food program managers that will include federal, state and local regulatory officials. Throughthis Alliance, AFDO will enhance widespread influence by formalizing this community and bringing themtogether for annual face-to-face meetings to support the advancement of the Manufactured FoodRegulatory Program Standards (MFRPS) and better access and share food safety information and data andto assist FDA in meeting the provisions of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). Through thisAlliance, AFDO will conduct surveys such as the AFDO State Food Safety Resource Survey to ascertaincritical information on cooperative initiatives or programs and other relevant information as well as surveystates and identify existing laws and collect details on new and unique state laws that go beyond the Food,Drug and Cosmetic Act. AFDO will also develop task-oriented guidelines to address issues that can beadopted or integrated into State/Local/tribal food manufacturing programs and identify and support pilotprograms in manufactured food programs that can demonstrate the effectiveness and importance of anationally integrated food safety system. This Alliance will provide community-building, exchange andnetworking structure to support resources, and it can expand on current AFDO efforts to support theintegration of the national food safety system with successful projects such as AFDO's Registry of SubjectMatter Experts, AFDO's Topical Index of Regulatory Guidance, and the AFDO Program ManagerInformation Portal to allow for the sharing of relevant program information and resources. The Alliance willalso identify and coordinate training activities with FDA and/or other entities such as the International FoodProtection Training Institute (IFPTI), and it will update and improve the Directory of State & Local Officials(DSLO) to enhance regulatory communication and coordination through an easy-to-use public interfaceallowing users to quickly identify state regulatory contacts.
The AFDO Alliance for Advancing a National Integrated Food Safety System proposal is intended to facilitate long-term improvements to the national food safety system by strengthening agency collaborations and improving the state regulatory and surveillance protection programs for manufactured foods. By building upon the strong foundation of AFDO's structure and its existing regulatory contact framework, an Alliance will be established;bringing together federal, state and local regulatory contacts to work toward advancing a national integrated food safety system and effectively fulfilling the requirements of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). Ultimately, the safety and security of the United States'food supply will improve.
