Restaurants, retailers and foodservice institutions each may be required to hire unit-level certified food protection managers if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s revised Model Food Code is adopted by state, county or city jurisdictions.

Last week the FDA released a supplement to its Model Food Code, including several new or amended provisions offering a clearer delineation of the food safety responsibilities of a restaurant or retailer’s “person in charge,” and clearer guidelines for the amount of time a business should be given to correct violations of Food Code provisions.

The FDA’s guidelines are not mandatory, but are used by many state or local jurisdictions to craft food safety standards.

“The FDA is recommending that states and local jurisdictions incorporate into their retail food safety codes and ordinances a requirement that food establishments employ at least one certified food protection manager,” said Stephen King, a spokesman for the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

“Most, if not all, jurisdictions will have to take some action — policy setting, rulemaking or legislation — to make binding the revised provisions of the Food Code,” King added.

Research by the Association of Food and Drug Officials commissioned by the FDA found that as of December 2010, 49 states had patterned their food safety codes after versions of the federal Model Food Code.

Read the 2009 Food Code supplement

“I think the points listed by the FDA's action plan are good steps towards strengthening food safety in the U.S. foodservice industry,” said Carl Klein, executive director of food safety for Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp. of San Diego.

Garden Fresh operates more than 120 Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes salad-buffet restaurants at which all managers are National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation ServSafe program certified and must pass a proprietary food-safety test, among other requirements, according to Klein.