Food Protection Rapid Response Team and Program Infrastructure Improvement Implementation Project (U18)

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA), Division of Federal-State Relations (DFSR), in collaboration with the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) and the Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM), is announcing the availability of up to six cooperative agreements to be awarded under a Limited Competition. Only States with current FDA food safety inspection contracts (providing funding to State agency food protection regulatory programs) and who are currently receiving funding under those contracts are eligible to apply for these competing continuation awards. The FDA only guarantees one year of funding with the possibility of up to one year of additional, non-competitive support, contingent on performance and continued availability of federal funds. These cooperative agreements are intended to develop, implement, and sustain replicable models of an all-hazards food and foodborne illness Rapid Response Team (RRT) concept within the national integrated food safety system. The goal of these cooperative agreements is to facilitate long-term improvements to the national food safety system by strengthening interagency collaboration and improving States' regulatory and surveillance protection programs for manufactured foods. This will be accomplished through the provision of funding for program improvement and will require extensive cooperation and coordination with FDA District Offices and other FDA program offices. Effective leveraging of resources and harmonization of efforts will require collaboration with relevant initiatives, including those of federal partners (e.g., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service), national initiatives and associations, state, and local partners. The infrastructure necessary to develop and sustain rapid response capabilities is established using the FDA Manufactured Food Regulatory Program Standards (MFRPS) to assess and continually improve the infrastructure and equivalency in effect of a State food regulatory program. Each partner state that is awarded funding through these cooperative agreements must demonstrate progress towards significant compliance with the MFRPS in the first year of the agreement and, given availability of funding for a second year of the agreement, achieve significant compliance with the MFRPS by the end of the second year. Improving rapid response capabilities under these cooperative agreements requires completing development, assessment, implementation, incorporation, collaboration, and documentation/sharing of an RRT concept, encompassing both food and feed protection programs, over the course of the project period.