Kentucky Department for Public Health DPHPS Food Safety Branch Conformance with T

Our agency's enrollment in the MFRPS program started in July 2011. Many gaps already identified in our program include lack of a solid regulatory platform, equivalent to that of FDA's, in which to enforce uniform standards as part of a nationally integrated food protection system. A key gap with regards to fulfilling most, if not all of the MFRPS program standards includes the lack of human resources (including a training officer, compliance officer, and a MFRPS Project Coordinator). The intended outcome of this Cooperative Agreement Funding Application is to advance efforts for a nationally integrated food safety system by utilizing available federal (FDA) funding assistance to allow Kentucky's State Manufactured Food Regulatory Program to achieve and maintain significant to full conformance with the Manufactured Food Regulatory Program Standards (MFRPS). This Cooperative Funding Application, if successful, will allow our state food protection program to address many intra-agency identified gaps and obstacles, and will allow all the Food Safety Branch to implement a fully-functional MFRPS program in Kentucky. The intent of this Cooperative Agreement application is to fund two (2) MFRPS-dedicated personnel as part of our Food Protection Team. The addition of these two additional employees to our staff, one of whom will be designated as the MFRPS Project Coordinator, will provide the Kentucky DPH-Food Safety Branch the human resource capability to develop and implement a comprehensive strategic plan that will result in significant to full conformance with the MFRPS, and program equivalency with our federal (FDA) partners; a key component of advance our Kentucky Food Protection program forward as a key partner in a nationally integrated food safety system.