MFRPS Maintenance and Continuous Improvement for Wisconsins Division of Food and Recreational Services

Project Summary/Abstract Wisconsin’s Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) requests $350,000.00 per year for each of the next 3 years – for a total of $1,050,000.00 across the entirety of the next 3 year period – in furtherance of our project “MFRPS Maintenance and Continuous Improvement for Wisconsin’s Division of Food and Recreational Services.” This project is meant to assist DATCP’s manufactured food regulatory program in maintaining conformance with the federal Manufactured Food Regulatory Program Standards (MFRPS), and to thereby help advance efforts toward an integrated food safety system (IFSS). Wisconsin is a pioneering MFPRS state, and has long maintained a significant Standards program. We enrolled in the MFRPS in 2007, even before enactment of the landmark national Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). We have been continuously receiving related Cooperative Agreement Program (CAP) funding since 2012. Our proven approach to the MFRPS makes us capable of both identifying obstacles to conformance, and properly directing resources to overcome them. As evinced in particular by our participation in the Flexible Funding Model (FFM) grant and the related CAP over the last half-decade – as well as our ongoing work with DATCP’s food Rapid Response Team and our Bureau of Laboratory Services – we are well positioned to support further capacity development and activities involving an IFSS. Our approach involves an overall strategy and methodology that is appropriate and sufficiently well-considered to accomplish the goals of this project, as detailed throughout our application materials. We have worked, and continue to work, effectively with the federal and state actors who are our primary MFRPS partners. As outlined in the budget materials submitted with this application, we intend to dedicate the necessary financial resources, particularly as to staff and overall programmatic infrastructure, to achieve the CAP goals.