Kansas has no statewide certified food protection manager requirement (Kansas does not require a Certified Food Protection Manager). Where you work may matter: any county or city rule that does require one is below, verified from the official source.

The rule

Kansas does not require a Certified Food Protection Manager. This was verified against the adopted regulation text, not inferred.

The FDA Model Food Code section number that creates the CFPM mandate, 2-102.12, does not appear anywhere in the Kansas Food Code – zero occurrences in the full 165-page adopted document (searched 2026-09-05). Subpart 2-102 Knowledge of the Kansas Food Code contains exactly one section, 2-102.11 Demonstration; the code’s own Part 2-1 Supervision subpart list runs “2-101 Responsibility / 2-102 Knowledge / 2-103 Duties” and nothing sits between 2-102.11 and 2-103.11 Person in Charge. Kansas adopted the knowledge section and did not carry over the certification mandate.

The only certification language in the code is permissive, inside 2-102.11: being “a certified FOOD protection manager who has shown proficiency of required information through passing a test that is part of an ACCREDITED PROGRAM” is route (B) of three alternative ways the person in charge may demonstrate knowledge.

The agency says the same thing in its own words. KDA’s Educational Materials - Food Safety page (as we read it on August 14, 2026): “KDA encourages food establishments to have managers obtain Food Protection Manager Certification.” Encourages, not requires.

And the statutes agree by silence: the word “manager” occurs zero times in KDA’s 33-page compilation of the Food Safety & Lodging Program state statutes (K.S.A. ch. 65 art. 6 plus K.S.A. ch. 36 art. 5), and K.A.R. article 4-28’s only “manager” hit in 28 pages is the words “owner or manager” inside the bed-and-breakfast definition.

What it’s called

“CFPM”, “food manager certification”, “food safety manager certification”, “food manager license”, “ServSafe Manager” and “food protection manager certification” are the informal names searchers use. In Kansas none of them names a state credential – they name a private certification from an accredited program that Kansas recognizes as one route to satisfying the person-in-charge knowledge duty. ServSafe is a provider’s program, not the credential’s legal name. It is also not a food handler card: Kansas has no state food handler card either (the phrase “food handler” appears zero times in the Kansas Food Code).

How this relates to the food handler card

Neither credential is required by Kansas, so there is no substitution rule to state – and saying either one “satisfies” the other would invent a Kansas rule that does not exist.

What Kansas actually has is a single establishment-level duty on the person in charge. Kansas Food Code 2-102.11 requires the person in charge to demonstrate food-safety knowledge to the regulatory authority “during inspections and upon request,” and lets that be done by any one of three routes: “(A) Complying with this Code by having no violations of PRIORITY ITEMS during the current inspection; Pf (B) Being a certified FOOD protection manager who has shown proficiency of required information through passing a test that is part of an ACCREDITED PROGRAM; Pf or (C) Responding correctly to the inspector’s questions as they relate to the specific FOOD operation.”

Manager certification is route (B) – an option, never a mandate. Route (A) and route (C) discharge the same duty with no certificate at all.

The handler side is different in kind: a food handler card is an individual employee credential, and Kansas has none. The City of Leavenworth issues one by city ordinance for food employees; that city card is an employee credential and has nothing to do with 2-102.11’s person-in-charge knowledge duty, which Leavenworth’s official page does not mention. The City of Wichita repealed its handler-card ordinance on September 18, 2018 and publishes no manager requirement either.

The employee-level question — whether Kansas requires a food handler card — is answered on the Kansas food handler card page .

Quick facts

  • Requirement level: None — Kansas does not require a Certified Food Protection Manager
  • Duty shape: optional-knowledge-route
  • Who must hold it: No one. No Kansas statute, regulation or food code provision requires any person to hold a food protection manager certification.

The duty that does exist falls on the person in charge, and it is a demonstration duty rather than a credential: under Kansas Food Code 2-102.11 the person in charge must be able to demonstrate knowledge of foodborne disease prevention, HACCP principles and the requirements of the Code to the regulatory authority during inspections and on request, and may do so by having no priority-item violations at the current inspection, by holding an accredited-program certification, or by correctly answering the inspector’s questions across seventeen enumerated areas.

A separate and genuinely mandatory Kansas duty is easy to confuse with a manager mandate and is not one: Kansas Food Code 2-101.11(A) requires that the licensee be the person in charge or designate another, and that the licensee “ensure that a PERSON IN CHARGE is present at the FOOD ESTABLISHMENT during all hours of operation” (Priority foundation). That requires a person in charge on site – it does not require that person to be certified.

  • Presence rule: There is no requirement that a certified manager be present at any time, because Kansas requires no certified manager at all. Nothing in the Kansas Food Code conditions anything on a certified person’s presence.

The presence rule Kansas does have is about the person in charge, certified or not. Kansas Food Code 2-101.11(A): the licensee “shall ensure that a PERSON IN CHARGE is present at the FOOD ESTABLISHMENT during all hours of operation” (Priority foundation item). 2-101.11(B) lets a licensee with two or more separately licensed departments on the same premises designate a single person in charge for the premises “during specific time periods when food is not being prepared, packaged, or served.” 2-101.11(C) exempts establishments the regulatory authority deems minimal-risk.

Rendering that as “Kansas requires a certified manager on site during all hours” would be false on both halves of the sentence.

  • Minimum certified people: Zero. Kansas sets no minimum number of certified managers per establishment, per shift or per licensee, because certification is not required. The number Kansas does set is one person in charge present during all hours of operation (Kansas Food Code 2-101.11(A)), and that person need not be certified.
  • Certificate issued by: A private accredited program, never Kansas. The state issues no food protection manager certificate: the word “certificate” appears zero times in the Kansas Food Code, and no application, registration or certificate for a manager exists in K.A.R. article 4-28 or in the Food Safety & Lodging statutes.

Where a person chooses the certification route under 2-102.11(B), the credential comes from an “ACCREDITED PROGRAM” as defined in Kansas Food Code 1-201.10: “a food protection manager certification program that has been evaluated and listed by an accrediting agency as conforming to national standards for organizations that certify individuals.” KDA’s Educational Materials - Food Safety page points readers to the accreditation list rather than to any state list: “List of all Food Protection Manager certification programs accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) - Conference for Food Protection (CFP) partnership,” linking ansi.org’s food-protection-manager directory. Programs are named by the accreditor, not ranked or recommended here.

  • Regulator: Kansas Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Lodging Program. KDA licenses and inspects food establishments statewide under K.S.A. 65-688, which directs the secretary to “adopt rules and regulations establishing a graduated application and license fee schedule to cover all of the cost of inspection of food establishments and food processing plants” and to adopt rules “establishing minimum conditions necessary to operate and maintain a food establishment or food processing plant in a safe and sanitary manner.” The program’s published address is 1320 Research Park Drive, Manhattan, KS 66502, phone (785) 564-6767. There is no separate state food-manager certifying board – Kansas certifies no one.
  • Valid for: No state term. Kansas requires no manager certification and sets no expiry, renewal cycle or recertification interval for a food protection manager anywhere in the Kansas Food Code 2022 (K.A.R. 4-28-8), K.A.R. article 4-28 or the Food Safety and Lodging statutes. Any term belongs to the private accredited program that issued the certification.
  • Renewal: None set by Kansas. Because Kansas requires no certification, it sets no expiry, no renewal cycle and no recertification interval for a food protection manager – no such period appears in the Kansas Food Code, in K.A.R. article 4-28 or in the Food Safety & Lodging statutes. Where a person holds an accredited-program certification, that program’s own recertification terms govern; Kansas Food Code 1-201.10 lists “re-certification” among the factors an accrediting agency evaluates in the program, which places recertification with the program rather than with the state.
  • State fee: Kansas charges nothing for food protection manager certification, because it neither requires nor issues one. There is no state manager application, no registration and no certificate, so there is no state fee of any kind to report. Any price a person pays is a private accredited program’s price for its own certification, set by that program and changeable without any Kansas rulemaking; KDA publishes no provider prices and no provider price list, only a link to the ANSI-CFP accredited-program directory. Kansas’s published food-safety fees are establishment license fees under K.S.A. 65-688 and K.A.R. 4-28-6, which are charged to the business for licensing and inspection and have nothing to do with an individual’s certification.

Training and exam

Kansas administers no examination and sets no passing score, proctoring rule, retake rule or exam validity window for food protection managers. Nothing of the kind appears in the Kansas Food Code, K.A.R. article 4-28 or the Food Safety & Lodging statutes.

The only exam language in Kansas law is conditional and belongs to the private accredited program: 2-102.11(B) speaks of a person “who has shown proficiency of required information through passing a test that is part of an ACCREDITED PROGRAM.” Whether that test is proctored, what score passes and how long it is honoured are the accredited program’s terms, not Kansas’s.

Separately, the inspector-questioning route at 2-102.11(C) is an oral demonstration to the regulatory authority across seventeen enumerated areas of knowledge – from the relationship between foodborne disease and employee hygiene, through required cooking and holding temperatures, major food allergens, cleaning and sanitizing, water source protection, poisonous or toxic materials, critical control points and HACCP-plan compliance, to employee exclusion/restriction reporting. It is a conversation at inspection, not a scored examination, and it is Priority foundation.

Approved courses and the approval standard

Kansas approves no providers and maintains no state-approved list. The code’s test is accreditation, not state approval: 2-102.11(B) requires “passing a test that is part of an ACCREDITED PROGRAM,” and 1-201.10 defines an accredited program as one “evaluated and listed by an accrediting agency as conforming to national standards for organizations that certify individuals.” The same definition adds two limits worth quoting: “‘Accredited program’ refers to the certification process and is a designation based upon an independent evaluation of factors such as the sponsor’s mission; organizational structure; staff resources; revenue sources; policies; public information regarding program scope, eligibility requirements, re-certification, discipline and grievance procedures; and test development and administration,” and “‘Accredited program’ does not refer to training functions or educational programs.” That last sentence means the accreditation attaches to the certification process, not to a course – a training course marketed as “accredited” is not what the Kansas definition covers. KDA adds no approval layer; it links the ANSI-CFP accredited-program directory on its Educational Materials page.

ANSI-CFP accreditation is the practical benchmark, but by definition-plus-agency-link rather than by a named standard in the rule. The Kansas Food Code never uses the words “Conference for Food Protection” at all, and its only two “ANSI” hits are equipment standards (an “NSF/ANSI” equipment reference, and an “American National Standards Institute (ANSI)-accredited certification program” deeming clause for equipment) – neither is about managers. The manager side runs on the generic 1-201.10 definition of accredited program: evaluated and listed by an accrediting agency as conforming to national standards for organizations that certify individuals. KDA supplies the identification: its Educational Materials - Food Safety page links “List of all Food Protection Manager certification programs accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) - Conference for Food Protection (CFP) partnership.” So an ANSI-CFP/ANAB-accredited certification satisfies route (B); Kansas does not itself name the accreditor in the adopted rule.

Fees

  • Regulatory fee: None. Kansas operates no manager application or registration, so there is no state or local application or registration fee. K.A.R. article 4-28 sets no such fee (full article) and neither does any statute in the Food Safety & Lodging program. The nearby city fee that exists is not a manager fee: Leavenworth charges a “$100.00 permit fee” for an establishment health permit.
  • Government certificate fee: None. Kansas issues no government certificate or ID card for food protection managers – the word “certificate” does not appear in the Kansas Food Code at all – so there is nothing to charge for.
  • Examination fee: None set by Kansas. The state administers no examination. Where a person takes an accredited program’s test under 2-102.11(B), the price is that program’s, and Kansas publishes no such price.
  • Course price: Not published by any Kansas source. Unlike states that list approved providers with prices, KDA publishes no provider price list and no state-approved provider list – its Educational Materials page links only the ANSI-CFP accredited-program directory. Any course price a reader encounters is a private vendor’s own price and is never a Kansas fee.

Renewal

None published by Kansas. No continuing education, refresher course, renewal filing, renewal fee or lapse/reinstatement procedure exists for a food protection manager, because the state credential does not exist. The recurring Kansas obligation is the person in charge’s ongoing ability to demonstrate knowledge at each inspection under 2-102.11 – a duty that is re-tested at every inspection rather than renewed on a calendar.

Grace periods and coverage

Replacing a certified manager. Not applicable and not published. Kansas has no certified-manager requirement, so there is no grace period for replacing a certified manager who leaves, and none is written anywhere in the Kansas Food Code, in K.A.R. article 4-28 or in the Food Safety & Lodging statutes (full text of all three, as of 2026-09-05). No change-of-ownership grace period for a manager credential exists either.

Several establishments. Not applicable and not addressed. With no certified-manager requirement there is no question of whether one certified person may cover several locations, and the Kansas Food Code says nothing on the point. The rule that does travel across locations is the person-in-charge presence rule: Kansas Food Code 2-101.11(B) allows a licensee with “two or more separately LICENSED departments located on the same premises that are the legal responsibility of the same LICENSEE” to designate a single person in charge for all of them, but only “during specific time periods when food is not being prepared, packaged, or served.” That is same-premises, not multi-site, and it concerns supervision rather than certification.

New establishments. None – there is no manager requirement, so there has never been a compliance deadline for one. The only dated milestone in this area is the adoption itself: the current Kansas Food Code took effect June 2, 2023. That is a past effective date for the code as a whole, not a manager deadline, and must never be rendered as one.

Who does NOT need this — exemptions

There is no manager certification requirement to be exempt from, so Kansas publishes no exemption list for one. Two related sets of limits matter to a reader and should never be relabelled as manager exemptions:

  1. Establishments outside licensure. K.S.A. 65-689(d) lists the classes that need no food establishment license at all – among them a facility already registered or licensed by KDA whose inspections encompass all its operations; a registered nonprofit providing food without charge solely to people who are food insecure; a location distributing prepackaged individual meals to persons eligible under the federal Older Americans Act; a person producing food for distribution directly to the end consumer where the food needs no time/temperature control for safety or specialized processing; a person who serves food exclusively on interstate conveyances or common carriers; a person operating a food establishment for less than seven days in any calendar year; a person preparing, serving or selling food “for the sole purpose of soliciting funds to be used for community or humanitarian purposes or educational or youth activities”; food vending machine operators; “[a] person providing only complimentary coffee to its patrons whose primary business is unrelated to operating a food establishment or food processing plant”; a farm winery offering no food but its own wine; “[a] retailer… that sells only alcoholic liquors and cereal malt beverages”; a food establishment under 200 cubic feet selling only non-hazardous packaged foods received directly from a licensed food production facility; “[a] person who provides food samples, without charge, to promote, advertise or compliment the sale of food or associated food preparation equipment”; and a guest house. K.S.A. 65-689(e) limits all of it: an exempt entity “shall not be exempt from inspection or regulation when a violation is observed or reported to the secretary.” K.S.A. 65-689(f) removes the license requirement for a food establishment operated in connection with premises licensed, registered or permitted by KDHE, DCF, Corrections or KDADS and inspected under those laws. (Revisor’s live text as of 2026-09-05; the statute’s history ends at L. 2018, ch. 71, sec. 38.)

  2. The presence rule’s carve-out. Kansas Food Code 2-101.11(C) exempts from the person-in-charge presence requirement “certain types of FOOD ESTABLISHMENTS deemed by the REGULATORY AUTHORITY to pose minimal risk” – a supervision exemption, not a certification one.

Commonly assumed exempt but not: “any other private, public or nonprofit organizations routinely serving food” are expressly inside the K.S.A. 65-656(v) definition of food establishment, so a nonprofit that routinely serves food is regulated even though a one-off fundraiser is exempt.

Local rules

No Kansas county food protection manager requirement was found. Kansas administers retail food safety at the state level: KDA licenses and inspects food establishments under K.S.A. 65-688, and K.S.A. 65-692(a) lets the secretary contract with “the governing body of any municipality” – “municipality” being defined as “any city or county of this state” – for enforcement, in which case “[a]ny municipality entering into a contract with the secretary to enforce statutes, rules or regulations shall act as an agent of the secretary in carrying out such duties” and “[n]o such municipality shall charge any facility a fee for services performed as an agent of the secretary under such contract.” A contracting county therefore enforces the Kansas Food Code, not a county code of its own.

That is a structural argument, not a county-by-county check. The county health department pages for Johnson, Sedgwick, Wyandotte and Douglas counties could not be reached (September 5, 2026), so this section reports what the state framework provides plus the two municipal pages that were read, and does not claim a 105-county search.

Two Kansas cities publish food rules of their own, and neither imposes a manager certification.

City of Leavenworth (official Food Handler/Health Permits page, read live 2026-09-05) requires two things, both at the employee or establishment level: “The City of Leavenworth requires all food and drinking establishments, mobile food vendors and ice cream vendors to have a current health permit. To apply for a permit complete the application and return it to the City Clerk’s Office along with the $100.00 permit fee”; and “The City of Leavenworth requires all employees who handle food to have a food handler card issued by the City of Leavenworth,” obtained through a “75-minute StateFoodSafety.com online course.” The page says nothing about a manager certification.

City of Wichita (official Environmental Health food page, read live 2026-09-05) has repealed its card requirement and imposes nothing in its place: “On September 18, 2018, the City Council voted to repeal the ordinance requiring food handler cards in Wichita. There is currently no citywide or statewide requirement for food handlers cards.” The page offers “a free online food safety course for volunteers” and routes establishment licensing and inspection to KDA. It publishes no manager requirement.

Note the limit of the Wichita quote: it is about food handler cards. It is not a statement about manager certification, and must never be quoted as one.

Posting and proof

None. Kansas imposes no duty to post, display, keep on file or produce a food protection manager certificate – there is no certificate in Kansas law to post (the word “certificate” appears zero times in the Kansas Food Code) and no posting or record-keeping provision for one in K.A.R. article 4-28 or the statutes.

The proof that does get demanded is live and oral: under 2-102.11 the person in charge must demonstrate knowledge to the regulatory authority “during inspections and upon request.” If the person in charge is relying on route (B), producing the accredited-program certification at inspection is how that route is shown – but that is the evidentiary consequence of choosing the route, not a published posting rule.

Registration with the state

None. Kansas adds no government layer – no state or local registration, ID card, filing, number or lookup for a food protection manager. K.A.R. article 4-28 provides for none, the Kansas Food Code provides for none, and no KDA page read for this page (September 5, 2026) operates one. The only government transaction in this area is the establishment’s own food establishment license under K.S.A. 65-688 and K.A.R. 4-28-6, which is the business’s license and not an individual credential. Kansas also publishes no verification lookup for certified managers; verification runs through the accredited program that issued the certification.

Food code edition

Kansas Food Code 2022, dated October 20, 2022, adopted by reference at K.A.R. 4-28-8 “except for the preface and the index,” effective June 2, 2023. Its cover states it is “(Based on the 2017 Model Food Code and Supplement by the US PHS and FDA)” and its preface elaborates: “The Kansas Food Code is based largely upon the United States Public Health Service and United States Food and Drug Administration’s (PHS) 2017 Model Food Code as modified by the 2017 Supplement, which was released in 2019.”

The edition is the whole explanation for this page: Kansas adopted a 2017-generation code and, in doing so, did not carry over the FDA section that mandates a certified food protection manager. Note also that the preface – the passage quoted above – is expressly outside the adoption by reference; it describes the document rather than binding as rule text, so cite it as the publisher’s description, not as regulation. Adopting rule effective 2023-06-02 (K.A.R. 4-28-8 as amended June 2, 2023, adopting the Kansas Food Code document dated October 20, 2022; the regulation itself dates from Feb. 29, 2008, amended June 4, 2010 and April 26, 2013).

What the sources do not say

Sources checked for every negative below: statute (K.S.A. ch. 65 art. 6 via the Revisor’s live pages for 65-656, 65-688 and 65-689, plus KDA’s full 33-page statute compilation) -> administrative rule (K.A.R. article 4-28, full 28-page KDA print) -> the adopted code itself (Kansas Food Code 2022, full 165-page text, full-text searched) -> agency pages (KDA Laws/Regulations, Educational Materials, Starting a Food Business) -> the accreditation route KDA itself links (ANSI-CFP directory). Absence from these sources is reported as absence from these sources, not as proof of non-existence.

  • No CFPM mandate. “2-102.12” occurs zero times in the Kansas Food Code; Subpart 2-102 Knowledge contains only 2-102.11. Certification appears once, as route (B) of three.
  • No state certificate, application, registration or number. “certificate” occurs zero times in the Kansas Food Code; no manager application exists in K.A.R. 4-28 or on any KDA page we checked, so this page gives no application link.
  • No term is stated, because Kansas sets no term. No expiry, renewal cycle or recertification interval for a food protection manager appears in the code, the regulations or the statutes. Any term belongs to the private accredited program that issued the certification, and stating an integer here would invent a Kansas rule.
  • No state fee of any kind for the manager credential. The fees Kansas publishes – K.S.A. 65-688 and K.A.R. 4-28-6 – are establishment license and inspection fees charged to the business.
  • No provider price published by any Kansas source. KDA publishes no provider price list and no state-approved provider list; it links the ANSI-CFP accredited-program directory instead. Quoting a course price here would be quoting a private vendor, not Kansas.
  • No state exam, passing score, proctoring rule, retake rule or exam validity window.
  • No posting, display or record-keeping requirement for a manager credential.
  • No presence requirement for a certified person. The presence rule at 2-101.11(A) is about the person in charge and does not require certification.
  • No replacement or change-of-ownership grace period for a manager credential.
  • No multi-establishment rule for a manager credential; the code is silent because the credential is optional.
  • No verification lookup or public registry for certified managers is operated by Kansas; verification runs through the issuing accredited program.
  • No pending or future Kansas manager mandate was found. KDA’s Laws/Regulations page states that Model Food Code updates “are evaluated for adoption in the Kansas Food Code” through an informal public input process before formal adoption into K.A.R., and that “the current Kansas Food Code took effect on June 2, 2023.” No notice of a proposed adoption of a newer FDA edition appears on the KDA pages we checked on September 5, 2026 (the most recent of which we read on August 14, 2026). The next Kansas Food Code adoption is the event that could introduce 2-102.12.
  • Not covered by this page (as of September 5, 2026), and so not asserted: a county-by-county check of Kansas local health departments. Johnson County (jocogov.org), Wyandotte County / Unified Government (wycokck.org), Sedgwick County (sedgwickcounty.org) and Lawrence-Douglas County (ldchealth.org) all failed to load their food-safety pages for us (404 / 403 / connection timeout), and the Internet Archive held no saved copy of the addresses we tried. the local rules section therefore rests on the statutory structure (K.S.A. 65-692 municipal-agent contracts) plus the two city pages that were read, and says so on its face.
  • Not covered: a section-by-section read of the Leavenworth or Wichita municipal codes themselves, as opposed to the two official city pages read.