I think the most important things about CIFOR are that it is thorough, systematic, well written, clear and easy to understand. It takes a very complex problem—foodborne illness and contamination and shows how we can organize to break down the complexity and tackle a tough problem as a team. We included CIFOR guidelines in our Communicable Disease Investigation Reference Manual and referenced CIFOR in our Environmental Health Operational Guidelines. The Missouri Rapid Response Team (MRRT) subcommittee on CIFOR will also be looking into making sure we systematically incorporate CIFOR into all our work.

Mark Buxton - Missouri Rapid Response Team

The CIFOR Toolkit has been a prominent and indispensable tool used by the Minnesota Integrated Food Safety Center of Excellence (CoE). Specifically, Minnesota CoE staff have facilitated CIFOR Toolkit exercises in three states to bring together laboratorians, epidemiologists, public health nurses, and environmental health specialists to critically evaluate and plan improvements to their surveillance and response efforts. The CIFOR Toolkit was the essential framework that guided these discussions.

Kirk Smith - Minnesota COE

Boulder County Public Health’s Food Safety Program is enrolled in the FDA’s Voluntary National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards, which directs programs to have a “systematic approach in place for the detection, investigation, response, documentation and analysis of alleged food-related incidents.” For that reason, our program has relied heavily on the CIFOR Guidelines for the development of our policies and procedures. We are pleased to say that we successfully met that Program Standard in 2012 and continue to look to the CIFOR Guidelines to see how we can improve our program.

Gina Bare - Boulder County Public Health