Common purpose: Noun (plural: common purposes); of a group: having the same purpose or intent in some action or series of actions
In the U.S. food safety system, you will find both industry and regulators supporting that one goal—the common purpose, if you will. All want the same thing: to protect public health and serve consumers in a way that meets that purpose. Whether you’re talking about a health inspector, food producer/manufacturer, federal or state regulator, retail food outlet, restaurant—or anyone in between—each member of our system at the national, regional, state, and local levels is focused on keeping the public safe and our food supply consumable without fail.
What Is PwCP?
The concept of Partners with A Common Purpose, or PwCP, recognizes that public health and consumer protection is a common purpose that can be a major driver of successful collaboration. Establishing equal partnership at meetings and forums allows for greater input, collaboration, and innovation toward continually improving the safety of the food supply and public health.
Within this AFDO-industry initiative, food safety professionals and regulatory officials engage with each other in a “safe harbor” environment to examine their ability to impact food safety control through discussion, self-examination, and forums. During inaugural sessions held in 2018 and 2019, participants became equal partners and discussed characteristics of successful programs, barriers to implementing intervention strategies, how to overcome those barriers, and future opportunities.
The 2020 PwCP sessions will focus on developing consensus and determining how all stakeholders will move forward on some of the key topics identified during the 2018–2019 sessions. The consensus-based best practices derived from these sessions will then be shared with food safety stakeholders.