Advancement of The Kansas Department of Agriculture's Conformance With The Volunt

Project SummaryThe Kansas Department of Agriculture (KDA) promotes food safety by establishing foodprotection standards, investigating complaints, educating food businesses and consumers, andlicensing and inspecting food businesses. We are committed to food safety because weunderstand how important it is to public health, which is why we have been enrolled in theVoluntary National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards (VNRFRPS) since 2009.Entering into a cooperative agreement will allow our department to better accomplish our goal ofgreater VNRFRPS conformance.With funding and support from the FDA, we can implement an updated training plan for fieldstaff, develop and implement a quality assurance program for the inspection program, as well asthe compliance and enforcement program, update the inspection program and create a risk-based inspection system, and update and expand our educational outreach programs for bothconsumers and industry. This cooperative agreement will also support our continuedinvolvement and participation in Retail Standards events, conferences, meetings, and audits.Through regular self-assessment, completion of mid-year and annual performance reports, andannually reviewing and updating our five-year strategic plan, we will be able to assess ourprogress and refocus our work, so that at the end of this cooperative agreement, we will havereached signification conformance with the Retail Program Standards.Major progress we will accomplish includes: ¿ Develop and implement a quality assurance program for inspections ¿ Develop and implement a risk-based inspection system ¿ Update our compliance and enforcement program and develop a performance review program for enforcement strategies ¿ Update and improve our inspector training program ¿ Improve and expand industry and consumer outreach