Conference for Food Protection

Request financial support from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for State, Territorial, Tribal, and Local Food Safety Agency adoption, assessment and implementation of the Voluntary National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards.

On July 7, 2009 the multi-agency Food Safety Working Group established by President Obama recommended a new public health focused approach to food safety based upon three core principles: prioritizing prevention, strengthening surveillance and enforcement, and improving response and recovery. An effective food safety system requires an integrated approach where the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) relies on the more than 3,000 state, territorial, tribal, and local food safety agencies to conduct food safety inspections across the food supply chain, monitor the safety of the food supply through sampling and testing, and conduct foodborne illness surveillance, response and recovery actions.

The Voluntary National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards have been established by the FDA in collaboration with the Conference for Food Protection to establish a uniform foundation for the design and management of federal, state, territorial, tribal, and local food programs. The standards specify best practices and requirements for high quality food safety programs. The development and implementation of these programs are hampered by insufficient funding for non-federal food safety agency partners to develop the basic infrastructures necessary to implement uniform, protective, and effective food safety programs. The Voluntary National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards effort also lack infrastructure and resources for conducting timely verification audits of program assessments.

that the Conference Chair send a letter to the FDA Commissioner recommending that FDA enhance national food safety by providing multi-year funding through appropriate mechanisms to state, territorial, tribal, and local food safety agencies enrolled in the Voluntary National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards to build the necessary infrastructure to assess, implement and audit program efforts to attain standards.