In 2020, NACCHO was among organizations nominated by, and subsequently awarded, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) 2020 Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA) Honor Awards for accomplishments that directly impacted the public health work done in ORA.

In late 2018 and early 2019, FDA held several facilitated meetings with the leadership of the Association of Food and Drug Officials (AFDO), National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), Conference for Food Protection (CFP), and National Environmental Health Association (NEHA). From these meetings, the first-ever Retail Regulatory Association Summit was held on June 4 - 6, 2019. The purpose of the Summit was to better coordinate and align collective efforts to reduce foodborne illness associated with the retail sector.

From the Summit, the Retail Food Safety Regulatory Association Collaborative (hereafter, the Collaborative) was born in 2019, comprising of the following associations and agencies: AFDO, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CFP, FDA, NACCHO, and NEHA working together to reduce the incidence of foodborne illness. The Collaborative’s work focuses on a national strategy for the adoption of the latest editions of the Food Code, promoting and improving food safety culture, increasing enrollment and active participation and conformance with the Voluntary National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards, improving foodborne illness outbreak investigations, improving food safety management systems at retail food facilities, and enhancing effective communications and sharing of best practices among retail food protection partners.

The Collaborative was recognized at the 25th Annual FDA ORA Honor Awards celebration in the summer of 2020.

More details about the Collaborative are coming soon.