MFRPS Maintenance Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (PDA)

Project Summary/Abstract The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (PDA) is applying for the Flexible Funding Model-Infrastructure Development and Maintenance for State Manufactured Food Regulatory Programs (U2F) Clinical Trials Not Allowed Funding Opportunity for 2023- 2026 (RFA-FD-23-027) to continue conformance and maintenance of the Manufactured Food Regulatory Program Standards (MFRPS). Under state authority, PDA adopts most of the specified CFR provisions as the regulations of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania which in turn are the regulations by which PDA enforces at manufactured food facilities throughout the Commonwealth. Inspections are conducted following the best practices as developed by the Partnership for Food Protection workgroup recommendations for risk-based inspections. Achieving conformance with the MFRPS was a major component of the previous 5-year grant cycle and PA continues to build on this previous work to align with the expectations within the new Funding Opportunity Announcement. With the continued support through the FFM grant, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture intends to continue and further develop the Manufactured Foods Program and implement a Food Safety Protection Taskforce in order to develop outreach materials with resources for academia, industry, and is committed to sharing these results and materials on a national level in order to foster and support an integrated food safety system. As a previous recipient of these grant awards, PDA has shown continued improvement of meeting grant deliverables and will continue to develop the programs implementing best practices, while participating in information sharing and mutual reliance to promote an overall national integrated food safety system.