May 6, 2003

2003 Grassroots Food Safety Education Initiatives

This year's grassroots food safety education projects focus on cultural diversity and children, pregnant women, and other populations highly susceptible to foodborne illness. In addition, the emphasis on food safety training of food service personnel and the importance of food safety education in the school environment continue to grow.

Now in its sixth year, the PAS Food Safety Education Project Award Program has conveyed vital food safety information and training to consumers and key local multipliers such as WIC personnel, and community organizations and local agencies serving multicultural populations. In addition, participating Public Affairs Specialists (PAS's) and their partners from other Federal, state, and local agencies; voluntary groups; and the private sector have used a variety of innovative and effective means to deliver food safety education.

In cooperation with FDA's Office of Regulatory Affairs, 19 projects have been selected and will be funded by FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN).

Seven projects target multicultural food service workers:

• Safe Asian recipes will be developed and disseminated through food markets and senior citizen meal sites in Los Angeles and Orange County CA.
• Food service and food market workers throughout New Mexico will be trained in safe handling of shellfish and the hazards of raw shellfish.
• School food service workers in the U.S Virgin Islands will receive food safety training, as will health educators, health service workers and food service workers in another project in Puerto Rico.
• In Minnesota and both Dakotas small processors will be trained in safe low acid food canning.
• In two projects in the Indianapolis area and in Central Indiana food service workers will receive training in food safety and sanitation.

Three projects focus entirely on children:

• Food safety training for children, pre-school through third grade, in Greater New Orleans.
• Hand sanitizing education in school cafeterias in Clinton County NY.
• Handwashing workshops for schoolchildren using black light boxes throughout New Mexico.

Two projects target pregnant women, women of childbearing age and parents:

• Bilingual food safety workshops for pregnant women in all five boroughs of New York City.
• Food safety education for pregnant women, mothers, fathers and caregivers in Clinton County NY.

Four projects are general consumer food safety education projects:

• Bilingual in-store consumer information on produce and juice safety in New Jersey supermarkets.
• Bilingual National Food Safety Education Month Campaign in Durham County NC.
• Bilingual food safety, food security and V. vulnificus campaign in GA and SC.
• Bilingual Fight BAC! South Florida 2003 campaign in Miami-Dade County FL.

And three projects are train-the-trainer programs, providing training as food safety educators to:

• Community organizations in Hidalgo and Cameron Counties TX.
• The Arabic Community for Economic and Social Services in the Greater Detroit area.
• Volunteers working with elderly consumers throughout FL.

FDA Requests Comments on Extension of Food Code Data Collection

In the Federal Register, FDA has announced an opportunity for public comment on the proposed collection of certain information by the agency. The notice solicits comments on FDA's collection of information from local, State, and tribal agencies concerning their adoption of, or plans to adopt, all or portions of the FDA Food Code or its equivalent by regulation, law, or ordinance.

FDA has developed its model Food Code to assist and promote consistent implementation of national food safety regulatory policy among the local, State, and tribal jurisdictions that have primary responsibility for the regulation or oversight of retail- level food operations. A current, comprehensive, and accurate inventory of food code adoptions by States and U.S. territories, local, and tribal governments is necessary to determine the status of up-to-date protection of the U.S. population and to identify areas where assistance to these governments may promote the adoption of regulations based on the FDA Food Code.

This collection effort, which began in 2001, has had remarkable success with 97 percent participation from State and territorial agencies. The rulemaking process that local, State, territorial, and tribal governments must follow to adopt the Food Code is often a long and complicated process that can extend 2 or more years. For this reason, many agencies reported in the initial survey that they were still in the rulemaking process to adopt or update their food codes for the years 2004 and 2005 or beyond. Thus, FDA believes that further implementation of the initial survey is needed to cover this additional rulemaking in order to keep the current database accurate and up-to-date.

Comments on the collection of information must be submitted by June 16, 2003. All comments should be identified with the docket number, 03N-0136. The complete Federal Register notice can be read at http://www.fda.gov/OHRMS/DOCKETS/98fr/03-9533.pdf.