Environmental Health strives to strengthen managerial control at retail food establishments to ensure compliance with the five factors that the CDC identified as contributing to foodborne illness.
Wentworth, NC– Rockingham County participates in the FDA Voluntary National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards. These Standards serve as a guide for the design and management of a retail food regulatory program, with the ultimate goal of reducing the occurrence of risk factors that cause and contribute to foodborne illness.
There are a total of nine Program Standards which defines a retail foodservice regulatory program as effective and responsive. This program helps enrolled jurisdictions improve their programs by reinforcing risk-based inspections, good retail practices, and operational/environmental prerequisite programs while encouraging regulatory agencies and industry to focus on the factors that cause and contribute to foodborne illness. The ultimate goal of participating in the Program Standards is to improve food safety and reduce the occurrence of those risk factors.
In 2020-2021, Rockingham County Environmental Health conducted a survey to identify the risk factors that were most frequently observed OUT of compliance during the survey and to implement intervention strategies to reduce their occurrence in Rockingham County. The results colleted in this survey are beneficial for food establishment owners, management and workers to increase their food safety knowledge.
