Project Summary / Abstract
The overall mission of the Georgia Food and Feed Rapid Response Team (GA RRT) is to
characterize, investigate, mitigate, and conclude food and feed emergencies as a part of a
coordinated federal-state-local integrated food safety system. This project will allow Georgia to
build upon past successes and continually improve and sustain the mission and resources of
the GA RRT. Since 2012, Georgia has built and strengthened an integrated and multiagency
response team not only within the state, but state to state, and engages all appropriate federal,
state, local, and tribal stakeholders. These stakeholders include representatives from
agriculture, environmental health, epidemiology, laboratories, law enforcement and many more.
The GA RRT has been heavily involved in rethinking what an effective response is by
innovating, developing, and revising best practice guidelines, standard operating procedures,
and memorandums of understanding to build and strengthen the state’s capability and capacity
to respond to food and feed emergencies.
One of the major goals the GA RRT intends to build upon is the continual use of a coordinated,
standardized, and integrated incident management team to respond to food and feed outbreaks
and emergencies. The GA RRT intends to expand its resources to both neighboring RRT and
non-RRT states. A commitment to mutual reliance is shared and the GA RRT has participated in
PFP projects, including a reportable food registry coordination and recall information sharing
project. We look forward to working on a project tying together response work utilizing the
Incident Command Structure and resource sharing with other RRT states across the nation on
FoodSHIELD.
Finally, the GA RRT will emphasize data analysis and prevention by conducting environmental
assessments and evaluating the data collected to share internally and externally. The GA RRT
is confident the goals outlined in this project will advance efforts for a nationally integrated food
safety system by supporting the MFRPS and FSTF programs within Georgia.
