Minnesota’s Exemplary Food Safety Initiatives

Food Safety in Minnesota: Offerings, Distinctions, and News of Note

University of Minnesota Extension Food Safety. The University of Minnesota Extension provides an array of food safety educational programs that respond to an ever-changing food supply system.

Food service offerings, including in person throughout the state, online, and in Spanish, include a course that satisfies the education requirement for Food Manager Certification from the Minnesota Department of Health, Serve It Up Safely, an award-winning training that meets Minnesota’s 4-hour continuing education requirement to renew Food Manager Certification, basic food safety training, and food allergen training for food service workers.

In addition, there is training covering Minnesota’s safe food sampling at farmers’ markets’ legislation and food safety principles for vendors and food demonstrators to prepare and offer safe food samples; courses for at risk individuals, namely for seniors and caregivers; for children, parents, and caregivers; and for special needs, in home, or care settings.

There is cooking for a crowd training, during which volunteers learn about storage, safe cooling and cooking temperatures, and serving buffet style. Moreover, home preservation courses cover safe freezing, pickling, canning, and drying of food home grown or purchased.

Minnesota Department of Health. The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) Food, Pools, and Lodging Services (FPLS) is a recipient for year three of FDA Association of Food and Drug Officials grant (2016) in categories 1, 2, and 3. Past grant funding recipients in Minnesota include Kadiyohi/Renville Community Health Board, Douglas County Public Health, Southwest Health and Human Services, and City of Brooklyn Park.

The MDH FPLS works to provide guidance for its staff, delegated agency staff, and food establishment owners and operators by creating and maintaining a library of documents to promote food safety practices that are both scientifically valid and code compliant. Some examples of the most popular and widely-used documents include: Temperature and Time fact sheet, Example HACCP Plan for Reduced Oxygen Packaging (ROP), Special Event fact sheet and checklist, and Raw or Partially Cooked Animal Products guidance document.

Minnesota is nearing the end of a multi-year process to update its food code. The current code is modeled after the 1995 version; the updated version will resemble the 2013 FDA Code. Draft language for all chapters has been posted online for review.

MDH staff have developed a framework for a cross-unit work plan to address several priorities related to the new food code adoption, including:

1. Reviewing the draft language and writing the Statement of Need and Reasonableness; reviewing standard orders for the electronic inspection program;
2. Updating programming and testing the electronic inspection program;
3. Updating and creating fact sheets, guidance documents, applications, and forms;
4. Updating and testing the public website;
5. Developing and implementing training programs for regulators, industry, and the general public; and
6. Updating marking instructions and standardization documents.

As of 2015, MDH currently has three FDA Standardized Food Safety Inspection Officers. Their efforts have resulted in approximately 30 percent of all eligible sanitarians statewide being certified to FDA food inspection standards.