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

Ohio Department of Agriculture Flexible Funding Project Summary/AbstractThe overall goal of the Ohio Department of Agriculture, Division of Food Safety (ODA FS) is toachieve and maintain conformance with the most current version of the Manufactured FoodRegulatory Program Standards (MFRPS), which are intended to enhance food safety byestablishing a uniform basis for measuring and improving the performance of manufacturedfood regulatory programs in the United States and help Federal and State programs betterdirect 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 RegulatoryPrograms (U18) cooperative agreement will assist the program as it continues to develop andmaintain best practices for a high-quality regulatory program. In addition to maintainingconformance with the MFRPS, ODA FS has intentions of developing a special project thatsupports innovation and integration in a nationally Integrated Food Safety System (IFSS) usingthe MFRPS framework which can be shared with other programs.ODA FS would like to develop an acidified training course as a special project. Acidified Trainingspecial project portion of the FFM grant is to allow us to continue meeting our current stafftraining requirements to include the Conducting Acidified Food Inspections course. We also feelthere is a great need to educate acidified manufacturers beyond the Better Process ControlSchool to gain better compliance with the acidified rules and requirements, thus furthering thesuccess 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 allowus to gain more consistency and direction with regard to the operation of SUEs. They are aunique type of firm and the ODA feels that we can gain better compliance through thedevelopment of rules that are aimed at SUE operators and managers, again furthering our goalof food safety.