California Department of Food and Agriculture, Egg Safety and Quality Management Program application for Conformance with the Egg Regulatory Program Standards, Cooperative Agreement.

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Project Summary RFA-FD-22-006 The Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) supports the Egg Safety and Quality Management (ESQM) program which is well positioned to participate in the Egg Regulatory Program Standards (ERPS) implementation. The ESQM program was in the unique position of being involved in the initial development of the ERPS, cooperatively, along with Iowa and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This three-plus year comprehensive experience with ERPS allows ESQM an excellent opportunity to continue and expand the work, while maintaining consistency and enhancing the food safety and quality consumer product goals and missions of CDFA and ESQM. In congruity with the FDA’s desired outcomes under this Cooperative Agreement, ESQM is dedicated to the ERPS goals to assess and build on the ESQM regulatory foundation, contribute to the improvement of the ERPS, help develop and implement electronic information sharing protocols, strengthen a foundation for pursuing regulatory actions and outbreak investigations, improve the ESQM outreach and education for egg producers and maintain a commitment to complete compliance and integration of the ERPS. Through this funding opportunity, ESQM will hire an Environmental Scientist (ES) to complete the ERPS Standards, which will entail a full self-assessment of the program and action plans for making improvements to close the identifiable gaps. The ES would lead the ESQM program through all the improvement plan steps to achieve full implementation. The Environmental Scientist will work with the FDA to draft protocols and agreements in order to fulfill the goal of electronic information sharing. These goals target the implementation, further improvement, and promotion of the ERPS as a national integrated food safety system.