Erie County's 3 year plan for conformance with the Voluntary National Retail Program Standards

Erie County Department Of Health, Sandusky OH

Investigators

Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract Participating in this three year grant will be allow the Erie County Health Department food inspection staff to achieve conformance with several of the Voluntary National Retail Program Standards, specifically standards 2,,4, 7, 8 and 9. Funds provided by the grant will be used to obtain inspection equipment and computers which will allow our staff to trend violations from standard inspection via computer software. Utilizing the trended data, our agency will partner with participating food operations in a newly created Active Managerial Control Program. Operators that join the program will be given tools which will aid them in conducting active managerial control actions within their facilities. After completion of the program the Erie County Health Department will trend violations to see if there is a reduction in critical violations as well as non-critical violations. A second component of the Active Managerial Control Program will include participants attending two Level 2/ServeSafe trainings free of charge. During this training, Active Managerial Control ideas and the benefits of Active Managerial Control will be discussed. Funds will also be used to create and distribute educational food safety materials to food operations within our jurisdiction. Finally, our agency will purchase and distribute food safety promotional items to the general public in various different events at high profile locations within the county in the final 2 years of the grant. The Erie County Health Department believes that participating in this 3 year grant will greatly reduce the number of violations that are most commonly associated with foodborne illness at our licensed food operations. The educational opportunities that the grant will afford this agency will also have a large impact on the general public, community stakeholders, and licensed facilities within our jurisdiction.