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Foodborne illness response is an integral part of retail regulatory agency operations. The roles and responsibilities of all participating entities during investigations, including communication, is key to the efficiency and success of investigations.
AFDO, as part of its Retail Food Safety Regulatory Association Collaborative work, has developed a Food Related Emergency Exercise in the FREE-B exercise format* to allow participants to assess agency foodborne illness outbreak response plans. The exercise supports Standard 5 of the Voluntary National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards (January 2022) as a mock foodborne illness investigation to test program readiness.
This tabletop exercise has been designed by a group of subject matter and instructional design experts to provide participants with a real-life, plausible retail food outbreak scenario to evaluate interagency collaboration, jurisdictional issues, and communication.
This project was supported by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award [FAIN] totaling $500,000 with 100 percent funded by FDA/HHS. The contents of the authors do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement by, FDA/HHS or the U.S. government. The scenario was developed by subject matter experts, AFDO, and Food Safety Strategy, LLC.
**A FREE-B exercise is a compilation of scenarios based on both intentional and unintentional food contamination events. It is designed with the purpose of assisting government regulatory and public health agencies in assessing existing food emergency response plans, protocols, and procedures that may be in place, or that are in the process of being revised or even developed. The FREE-B is designed to allow multiple jurisdictions and organizations (e.g., medical community, private sector, law enforcement, first responder community) to play, so to speak, with the host agency, or for an individual agency to test its own plans, protocols, and procedures independently.
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