Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Advancing Conformance With The Voluntary National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards

Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Advancing Conformance with the Voluntary National Retail Food Regulatory Program StandardsProject Summary/Proposal AbstractThe Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) is seeking fundingfrom the U.S. Food and Drug Administration under RFA-FD-17-007 to support the department'sconformance with the Voluntary National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards(VNRFRPS). The amount of funding requested is $210,000.The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA), Division ofFederal-State Relations (DFSR) and the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN),is announcing the availability of cooperative agreements to be awarded under LimitedCompetition. This opportunity is only available to State, local, territorial, or tribal retail foodregulatory programs with primary regulatory responsibility for retail food establishments that arecurrently enrolled in the VNRFRPS and have completed a current self-assessment against theRetail Program Standards as required by Standard 9.The VDACS Office of Dairy & Foods, Food Safety Program meets all requirements to be eligiblefor this funding. The program serves as one of the state's primary retail food regulatoryprograms and is currently enrolled in the VNRFRPS. The program's last self-assessmentagainst the Retail Program Standards as required by Standard 9 was completed on August 23,2016. The Program has had verification audits showing the following Standards are met:Standard 2 ? Trained Regulatory Staff, 3 ? Inspection Program Based on HACCP Principles,Standard 5 ?Foodborne Illness and Food Defense Preparedness and Response and Standard 7? Industry and Community Relations.Funding provided by the RFA will be utilized to continue the program's conformance with theVNRFRPS by implementing procedures that promote active managerial control of the riskfactors most commonly associated with foodborne illness in food establishments. Specifically,the funding will be used to hire an additional employee that would be responsible for working onthe Standards full-time and thus continue the Program's progress with meeting Standard 1 ?Regulatory Foundation, Standard 4 ? Uniform Inspection Program, Standard 6 ? Complianceand Enforcement and Standard 9 ? Program Assessment. In addition, funding will be used toremain in conformance with Standards already met.