Four officers of the Environmental Health Department attend the 2024 Food and Drug Retail Food Protection Seminar  

PRESS RELEASE

FROM THE ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH DEPARTMENT

Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands – Monday, 7 October 2024: The Environmental Health Department is pleased to announce that four Officers attended the 2024 Food and Drug Retail Food Protection seminar of the Western Association of Food and Drug Officials from 24^th – 27^th September 2024. Environmental Health Officer Tiffany Murray and Port Health Officers Tinell Garland, Hattie Handfield and Rochelle Vanalstine-Nunes benefitted from the event, which was held in Sacramento, California. The event is held annually to assemble key officials from Environmental Health and Public Health Departments from western states including Hawaii, Arizona, Oregon, California, Colorado and Nevada.

The FDA Retail Food and Drug Seminar has been a forum for networking among participants and sharing challenges, successes and best practices regarding environmental health issues. The seminar included state reports and panel discussions by member states and provided insight on areas of food safety monitoring and regulation, implementation of the FDA food code, challenges in recruitment and retention of environmental health staff and the role of continuous professional development among environmental health professionals.

Notable areas of food safety discussed were:

1. Unpermitted food vendors
2. Regulation of cottage foods
3. Creating meaningful metrics for food safety programs
4. Shellfish distribution and controls
5. The role of freeze-drying of foods in food safety
6. Root cause analysis of hand washing violations
7. Food poisoning
8. Risk-based inspections and Environmental Assessments
9. Technological advancements in food safety monitoring

In addition to the wide range of educational topics covered by state regulatory officials, the team interacted with State environmental health managers and received vital information on food safety advancements, advanced inspection reporting and enhanced monitoring practices.

Honourable Shaun Malcolm, Minister of Health and Human Services, emphasised, “By equipping our officers with cutting-edge knowledge and tools, we are strengthening our ability to respond to food safety challenges more effectively. This training not only improves our inspection capabilities but ensures that we can protect public health more proactively.”

The Environmental Health Department is committed to maintaining the highest standards of food safety and public health in the Turks and Caicos Islands by building capacity and ensuring our officers are kept up to date with public and environmental health advances.

For additional information, please visit the Ministry of Health and Human Services Facebook page on https://www.facebook.com/tciministryofhealth/.