Nearly 2,500 Food Safety Experts Shared Their Needs

In early 2022 we launched a one-of-a-kind comprehensive national census—the Retail Food Safety Regulatory Training Needs Assessment—to identify strengths and knowledge gaps in the retail food safety regulatory community to better direct scarce training and education resources and identify where training should be developed or modified. Specifically, we aimed to:

• Determine the degree of exposure retail food regulatory professionals have to key content knowledge areas.
• Discover strengths and gaps between exposure to content and the working needs of the regulatory community.

We are pleased to report that we had an excellent response rate and received 2,443 qualified survey responses representing the regulatory workforce from across the regulatory community, as well as at jurisdiction levels. 

The complete survey findings will be shared this summer and will be used to help bolster educational resources, reduce knowledge gaps in the profession, and improve overall workforce capabilities. 

Thank you to every retail food safety professional who participated. The honest and thorough feedback we received showcases our workforce’s commitment to the future of regulatory retail food safety. 

To learn more about the assessment and to check back for findings this summer, visit our needs assessment webpage.