A People-Centered, Technology-Driven, Scientific Approach to Advancing Conformance with the Voluntary National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards

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PROJECT SUMMARY After decades of incremental changes to the food safety system, technological advancements have ushered in a corresponding period of increased change for both food systems and food safety. According to FDA’s most recent food safety initiative, the New Era of Smarter Food Safety, many experts believe the pace of change will continue increasing over the next ten years, perhaps even more than in recent decades. As old foods are reformulated, new foods are created, new production and delivery methods are developed, and the entire system becomes increasingly digitized, complexity for regulators is only going to increase. The National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) project entitled A People-Centered, Technology-Driven, Scientific Approach to Advancing Conformance with the Voluntary National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards (Retail Program Standards) is intended to: • Objective 1: Build and implement a Flexible Funding Model system to provide significant subaward funding to state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) retail food regulatory programs, to assist them in meeting the requirements of the Retail Program Standards, • Objective 2: Assess and identify the retail training needs of SLTT agencies, and assist the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in meeting those needs by building and establishing a Retail Training Pre-Registration System; and • Objective 3: Work with FDA to build and establish a National Retail Standardization Registry to better promote and track retail Standardizations nationwide. These three objectives will advance the Integrated Food Safety System (IFSS) requirements found in the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) and support the goal of building New Business Models and Retail Standardization in the New Era of Smarter Food Safety. By supporting SLTT retail food regulatory programs in their work toward uniformity and encouraging increased active managerial controls, we will assist the FDA with their goal of “bending the curve” of foodborne illness by reducing the number of illnesses and related deaths.