Flexible Funding- Infrastructure Development and maintenance for State Manufactured Food Regulatory Programs.

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Ohio Department of Agriculture Flexible Funding Project Summary/Abstract The overall goal of the Ohio Department of Agriculture, Division of Food Safety (ODA FS) is to achieve and maintain conformance with the most current version of the Manufactured Food Regulatory Program Standards (MFRPS), which are intended to enhance food safety by establishing a uniform basis for measuring and improving the performance of manufactured food regulatory programs in the United States and help Federal and State programs better direct their regulatory activities at reducing foodborne illness hazards in plants that manufacture, process, pack, or hold foods. The participation of ODA FS in the Flexible Funding Model – Infrastructure Development and Maintenance for State Manufactured Food Regulatory Programs (U18) cooperative agreement will assist the program as it continues to develop and maintain best practices for a high-quality regulatory program. In addition to maintaining conformance with the MFRPS, ODA FS has intentions of developing a special project that supports innovation and integration in a nationally Integrated Food Safety System (IFSS) using the MFRPS framework which can be shared with other programs. ODA FS would like to develop an acidified training course as a special project. Acidified Training special project portion of the FFM grant is to allow us to continue meeting our current staff training requirements to include the Conducting Acidified Food Inspections course. We also feel there is a great need to educate acidified manufacturers beyond the Better Process Control School to gain better compliance with the acidified rules and requirements, thus furthering the success of the manufacturers as well as supporting our goal of food safety. ODA FS would also like to create a Shared Use Establishment (SUE) Program. This will allow us to gain more consistency and direction with regard to the operation of SUEs. They are a unique type of firm and the ODA feels that we can gain better compliance through the development of rules that are aimed at SUE operators and managers, again furthering our goal of food safety.