The US Food and Drug Administration and the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Institute for Food Safety and Health created the Food Safety Preventive Controls Alliance to develop training courses and materials on preventing contamination for both human and animal food, including petfood, during production. The materials to be developed by the alliance will help industry members, particularly small- and medium-size manufacturers, comply with new preventive control rules of the FSMA.

The alliance is composed of members from the FDA, local and state food protection agencies, the food industry and academia. It is funded by a one-year, US$1 million grant to the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Institute for Food Safety and Health.

According to FDA, the alliance will: develop standardized hazard analysis and preventive controls training and distance education modules for food industry and regulatory personnel; design and deliver a distance learning training portal at the IIT IFSH Moffett Campus in Bedford Park, Illinois, USA; develop “train-the-trainer” materials and student education delivery systems; create a technical assistance network for small- and medium-sized food companies; develop commodity/industry sector-specific guidelines for preventive controls; assess knowledge gaps and research needs for further enhancement of preventive control measures; and identify and prioritize the need for, and compile, critical limits for widely used preventive controls.