West Virginia Conformance With Manufactured Food Regulatory Program Standards

Abstract:West Virginia Conformance with Manufactured Food Regulatory Program Standards West Virginia (WV) has a current Food Inspection contract with the Food andDrug Administration and enrolled in the Manufactured Food Regulatory ProgramStandards (MFRPS) in 2008. Enrollment in the Standards in 2008 was an affirmativestep toward the development of policies and procedures to improve the manufacturedfood program. WV has been actively working toward achieving and sustainingconformance with the Standards. The mission of the project for WV is to implement arisk based food safety program. WV will establish a uniform basis for measuring andimproving the performance of manufactured food regulators and inspectors. Foodborneillness hazards shall be reduced by the development and implementation of theMFRPS. Manufactured food program staff has worked diligently toward completingtraining, developing policies and rules, and tracking various aspects of the Standards.A self-assessment has been completed to identify gaps and strengths of the program.A self-improvement plan has also been completed that addressed each gap that wasfound. WV intends to move forward with continuing accomplishments and moving intoareas of the Standards where work is still needed. The program plans to hire onesupport staff person to handle data entry, tracking related to various Standards, filemanagement, and general office duties related to the MFRPS. These duties arecurrently being performed by the project manager. The project manager will be betterable to direct time to policy and rule development, training, management of thedatabases, conduct additional audits, and various other duties related to MFRPS. The project manager will annually review all work that has been conductedtoward MFRPS. Progress achieved in each Standard will be documented. After thereview, all identified gaps will be addressed in a comprehensive self-assessment withthe current self-improvement plan being reviewed and updated on an annual basis.Gaps will be given a time line for achievement. Gaps that are most achievable will beassigned an earlier time frame for completion. West Virginia plans to implementstrategic plans to ensure continuous improvement and demonstrate that they haveachieved full compliance by the end of the grant period.