Office of Compliance & Outreach

Administrator: Claudia Coles
Phone (360) 902-1905 or email oco@agr.wa.gov

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Contents

OCO - Mission and Work

• Support businesses investing in themselves for safe, sanitary operations and to improve success in the marketplace;
• Facilitate increasing awareness of and access to WSDA services to improve compliance with licensing requirements, voluntary certifications and other regulations;
• Protect public health and safety by the fair, uniform and judicious enforcement/application of food safety and environmental laws.

• Educating and assisting stakeholders to achieve a high standard of quality and safety in the production, processing and selling of WA foods;
• Providing technical assistance and information about required and recommended agriculture and food manufacturing practices, licenses, and certifications;
• Identifying best practices that are effective for the different sizes and types of farms and food businesses to meet voluntary and regulatory standards for quality assurance, food safety and environmental protection;
• Investigating, reviewing and implementing compliance actions for WSDA Food Safety and Consumer Services;
• Fostering communication and feedback mechanisms between the Washington agriculture community and local, state and federal agencies on research, policy and regulations affecting Washington stakeholder groups;
• Developing and implementing a divisional quality management system that assists with ensuring uniformity and consistency among agency audit and enforcement practices.

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Outreach and Education

OCO Outreach and Education Specialists participate in and coordinate a variety of workshops and training events in regions around the state. We coordinate mobile tours that integrate on-farm and in-kitchen hands-on experiences, and foster peer-to-peer learning opportunities for auditors, agricultural producers and institutional food services staff. Additionally, our team uses video and web-based tools to enable self-service training opportunities to extend the reach of primary services. We also seek grant funds to develop and implement pilot projects with partner agencies and institutional meal programs. From these pilots, we analyze their impacts and develop tools and resources to replicate the projects throughout the state.

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Food Safety Compliance Process

Food businesses licensed by the State of Washington to produce, market, sell and distribute product are required to follow the safe food production, management and handling practice specified in the Washington Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act and the Washington Food Processing Act. The majority of business operators successfully observe and implement the required practices. However, there are occasions when the Compliance team at WSDA is required to reiterate the guidelines, through a Notice of Correction (NOC). In the few cases in which this NOC does not prompt appropriate action on the part of the food producer, a series of further corrective actions will be taken.

Learn more about our Food Safety Compliance Process and relevant statutes. 

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Current OCO Projects

OCO regularly seeks to identify grant-funding where the goals and opportunities are closely aligned with Agency programs and priorities. The team works to secure targeted funding that will have immediate impacts on our state’s agricultural producers and agency operations, and will contribute to the broader knowledge and best practices across the region and the U.S.

The following projects are funded through the USDA Specialty Crop Block Grants [external link], CDC-Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW) [external link], FDA [external link], and others.

• Farm to schools and institutions wafarmtoschool.org [external link]
  OCO conducts Farm to School outreach efforts for farmers, food processors, schools, and communities. Through various grant funded projects, OCO provides information, inspiration, assistance, and policy solutions for those working to supply Washington schools and institutions with WA grown foods and related nutrition and agricultural education. Current projects and resources are on the WSDA Farm to School Toolkit, and are funded through Specialty Crop Block Grants and the CDC's Communities Putting Prevention to Work grants through the Department of Health and Human Services and Public Health - Seattle & King County..

• Supporting Good Agricultural Practices Bridging the GAPs
  Funded by a USDA Specialty Crop Block Grant, the Bridging the GAPs project will convene an inter-departmental team within WSDA to improve food safety and GAP/GHP education and outreach services to smaller and diversified farms in Washington State. The project will include on-farm auditor training, education, grower pre-audit assessments, creating tools for growers to ease the GAPs audit process, and participating in national food safety discussions and committees.

• Creating New Culinary/Agritourism Markets for WA Specialty Crop Producers
  Savor Washington This program is intended to reach travelers seeking farm-fresh food and farm-based experiences in their tourism activities. WSDA will provide agri-culinary tourism workshops for farmers and develop food-based agri-tourism travel itineraries to advertise farms’ offerings. Promotion of the programs will be conducted through tourism affiliates, WSDA’s partners and social media outlets

• Value-added Workshops
  This project assists growers who are experiencing low pricing and gluts in commodity markets to explore options around development of value-added products with shelf-life for year-round sales that they can market directly to generate higher profits. This project is intended to assist farms in diversifying their revenue streams to improve the farms’ economic viability. WSDA’s Food Safety Program will benefit through significant enhancements to their licensing packets which will in turn streamline the application process for specialty crop producers.

• Food Product Recall Workshops
  This series of day-long workshops brings WSDA and Food Safety professionals together to learn about current recall activities and how planning and preparing for recalls can help a business should it ever be subject to a voluntary or mandatory recall action. These free workshops are open to the food processing industry, farmers, public health officials, and the academic community.

• Rapid response
  The Rapid Response Program develops and manages the Food and Feed Emergency Rapid Response Team (RRT). The RRT is a joint effort by WSDA and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Seattle District Office (SEA-DO) to improve the efficiency of food emergency response and reduce the time to a meaningful intervention that protects public health. During an emergency response, WSDA and SEA-DO participate together on jointly-staffed field teams and manage the response via a unified command structure.
• LEAN
  Governor Gregoire has identified Lean Rapid Improvement work for state agencies as a top priority for 2012, and WSDA programs will be engaging in Lean work throughout the year. The Food Safety Consumer Services Division is WSDA’s model division for utilizing and integration Lean into the agency. Patrice Barrentine will serve a the WSDA Lean Coordinator.  Lean is based on grassroots problem-solving, where people who work within a process and the customer whose application or request goes through that process, get to work together to make the process better. One method for making this happen is a four day Rapid Improvement Workshop which is a collaborative event where you go in with a problem and you come out with a solution that can start in thirty days or less.