Association of Food and Drug Officials

Association of Food and Drug Officials

Many perspectives, one voice, since 1896.

Retail Food Outbreak Investigation Exercises

This page contains downloadable Food Related Emergency Exercises in the FREE-B format for group tabletop training. Each exercise package includes all files needed for your team to work through realistic foodborne illness outbreak scenarios, practice investigation procedures, and test your agency’s response plans. Developed by AFDO through the Retail Food Safety Regulatory Association Collaborative, these exercises support Standard 5 of the Voluntary National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards and focus on the critical coordination, communication, and decision-making skills needed during foodborne illness investigations.
Retail Food Outbreak Investigation Exercise 2

Table Top Exercise No. 1

Tassels and Tumult: The Graduation Gaffe

This scenario is designed as a six-hour (contact time) tabletop exercise focused on the retail sector to highlight the regulatory investigation procedures, epidemiological practices, inspectional approaches, and laboratory testing strategies that ensue following a consumer illness complaint of a meal catered locally from three different food establishments (a grocery store, bakery, and restaurant).

View files individually below or download all files at once here

Table Top Exercise No. 1

The Food Truck Fiasco

This scenario is designed as a six-hour (contact time) tabletop exercise centered on the retail sector and the interaction between SLTT during a food-related incident that involves a mobile food unit serving at a temporary event in a neighboring county. The highly interactive exercise requires participants to think critically about procedures and communications necessary to protect public health as the situation evolves across multiple regulatory jurisdictions.

View files individually below or download all files at once here

Table Top Exercise No. 1

Something’s Fishy

This seven-hour (contact time) tabletop exercise focuses attention on intentional aspects of food fraud and how it relates to food quality as well as generating discussion on food safety and food defense. The typical food safety scenario broadens as Food Fraud is discovered, and the investigation eventually crosses jurisdictional boundaries to include the concurrent activities of various regulatory agencies including law enforcement.

View files individually below or download all files at once here

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AFDO

The Association of Food and Drug Officials (AFDO) is a regulatory organization that connects food and medical-products safety stakeholders and impacts the regulatory environment by shaping sound, science-based rules, law, regulations, and sharing best practices that protect public health.