Kentucky Department For Public Health Dphps Food Safety Branch Conformance With T

Kentucky Department for Public Health-DPHPS Food Safety Branch Cooperative Agreement AbstractConformance with the Manufactured Food Regulatory Program Standards (MFRPS) (U18) Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) Number: RFA-FD-12-007 April 16, 2012Abstract:Our agency's enrollment in the MFRPS program started in July 2011. Many gaps alreadyidentified 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 thelack of human resources (including a training officer, compliance officer, and a MFRPS ProjectCoordinator). The intended outcome of this Cooperative Agreement Funding Application is toadvance efforts for a nationally integrated food safety system by utilizing available federal (FDA)funding assistance to allow Kentucky's State Manufactured Food Regulatory Program toachieve and maintain significant to full conformance with the Manufactured Food RegulatoryProgram Standards (MFRPS). This Cooperative Funding Application, if successful, will allowour 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 inKentucky.The intent of this Cooperative Agreement application is to fund two (2) MFRPS-dedicatedpersonnel as part of our Food Protection Team. The addition of these two additional employeesto our staff, one of whom will be designated as the MFRPS Project Coordinator, will provide theKentucky DPH-Food Safety Branch the human resource capability to develop and implement acomprehensive 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 ourKentucky Food Protection program forward as a key partner in a nationally integrated foodsafety system.