Food Safety Preventive Controls Alliance

“Then we will do a pilot to make sure the content and delivery of the curriculum is as smooth and effective as intended,” he says. “We will issue a call for people who are interested in working as alliance-recognized trainers and offer train-the-trainer courses for them after the final curriculum is available. Anyone doing the alliance-recognized training must be giving out the same message, as it is intended for compliance with the regulation.”

The curriculum will be publicly available, posted on the FDA and FSPCA websites, according to Scott, and anyone can use the curriculum for training.

FSPCA-recognized training courses will have alliance-trained trainers, and only these courses will issue FSPCA certificates, she says.

Once the final rule is published, facilities will have one to three years, depending on size, to comply with the requirements. Until issuance of the final rule, Dr. Brackett says, interested parties can follow the progress of the curriculum development on the FSPCA website (www.iit.edu/ifsh/alliance).

“We are trying to do a really great job of keeping the website as up-to-date as we can,” he says. “People can watch the web page for developments.”

Curriculum ‘Just the Beginning’

The FDA expects more from the FSPCA than just the development of the curriculum, Scott says.

“We will also provide additional ­technical information and serve as a go-to entity for industry to approach for help with FSMA compliance.”

—Purnendu Vasavada, PhD, outreach project manager, FSPCA

“We think the curriculum is just the beginning,” she says. “For training and education to be effective, there will have to be information available about specific foods produced by small businesses, which are the primary targets of this effort. Beyond the basic curriculum, we are expecting the alliance to help develop training modules for specific food types, so that the FSMA requirements can be related to a specific company or group.”

The FDA will also expect the FSPCA to help develop information for food-type-specific guidance documents to help small businesses understand how to do a hazard analysis, the types of hazards that are likely to be associated with their particular types of products, and how to implement controls for those types of hazards, Scott says.

“And we expect the alliance to do outreach to these types of companies, so the people involved in training may also become part of a network of experts that small businesses can call upon to help answer questions,” Scott adds. “So hopefully the alliance can coordinate what we call a National Technical Assistance Network and post information on their website that companies can go to for help with their preventive control or food safety plans.”

Donald is a veteran journalist with extensive experience covering a variety of industries. Reach him at [email protected].