# Retail Food Safety Regulatory Association Collaboration

> **NIH FDA U18** · ASSOCIATION OF FOOD AND DRUG OFFICIALS · 2022 · $500,000

## Abstract

AFDO Application for RFA-FD-22-008 - Retail Food Safety Regulatory Association
Collaboration
 PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
The origin of this cooperative agreement announcement is from the development of the Retail
Food Safety Association Collaborative (Collaborative). The Collaborative was formed in 2019
after a series of discussions among the retail food regulatory associations Association of Food
and Drug Officials (AFDO), Conference for Food Protection (CFP), National Association of County
and City Health Officials (NACCHO), National Environmental Health Association (NEHA), FDA,
and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about the need to have a collaborative
approach toward retail food safety to fully leverage each organization working in this space to
maximize the effectiveness.
Over the last two years, the Collaborative began many foundational activities that were
designed to assist retail food regulatory programs and industry in a number of areas: reducing
foodborne illness by implementing effective intervention strategies designed to reduce the
occurrence of foodborne illness risk factors; implementing and achieving full conformance with
the VNRFRPS; promoting use of risk-based inspection methods to effectively identify the
occurrence of foodborne illness risk factors, conduct root cause analysis, assess gaps in
industry active managerial control (AMC), and promote regulatory compliance; promoting
adoption of the most recent version of the FDA Food Code; effectively responding to foodborne
illness outbreaks; and responding to emerging food safety trends. The program is also intended
to encourage the research, development, and implementation of industry food safety
management systems and the prerequisite food safety culture necessary to achieve AMC of
foodborne illness risk factors.
Under this cooperative agreement, Collaborative members intend to build on these foundational
activities through continued sharing of individual accomplishments. Each member has identified
activities that individually, and collaboratively we will continue to gain better understanding of
the retail food safety state regulatory program environment, reduce the occurrence of retail
foodborne illness risk factors, and improve communications and availability of resources for
state, local, territorial, and tribal food safety programs.
AFDO’s major proposed projects under this cooperative agreement include:
  Gaining a better understanding of the retail food safety state regulatory program
 environment through continuing surveys and interviews in targeted areas.
  Reducing the occurrence of retail foodborne illness risk factors by:
 o Identification of foodborne illness interventions used at the state level,
 categorizing, and evaluating the interventions for effectiveness
 o Addressing identified barriers to adoption of recent version of the Food Code
 o Promote and assess implementation of risk-based inspections
 o Develop and promote strategies to impro...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10613084
- **Project number:** 1U18FD007738-01
- **Recipient organization:** ASSOCIATION OF FOOD AND DRUG OFFICIALS
- **Principal Investigator:** Steven Mandernach
- **Activity code:** U18 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** FDA
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $500,000
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-08-01 → 2025-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10613084

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10613084, Retail Food Safety Regulatory Association Collaboration (1U18FD007738-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10613084. Licensed CC0.

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