How to Develop a Food Safety Training Programme for Dummies
We hope your week has been as fabulous as ours!
As the year shuttles to an end we thought it would be a good time to share our insights on the different training requirements in the various food safety standards. It’s just the perfect time of the year to schedule some last-minute training or, even better, set up a training plan for 2021.
So, where do you start? Who do you train? How often do you train?
We’ve developed a model which provides a generic overview of food safety training requirements at different organisational levels which we hope will help you create and execute a plan that adds value.
LEVEL | TYPE OF TRAINING | FREQUENCY |
Senior Management | · Food Safety Culture
· Awareness: Basic understanding of the standard and how leadership is demonstrated |
Once off |
Middle Management | · In-depth training on the
requirements of the standard · Internal auditor training · Food Safety Culture Training · Food Defense (VACCP and TACCP) |
Once off and then again when the standards are updated |
Supervisors/Team Leaders | · Food Safety Team Training
· GMP Training · Internal Auditor Training · Food Defense (VACCP & TACCP) |
Once off and then again when the standards are updated.
GMP training could be offered as a refresher programme. |
All staff | · Induction training
· Basic Food Hygiene · Cleaning (use of chemicals and their dilution) · Allergen Management and Awareness · Task specific training such as OPRP and CCP monitoring |
Refresher programme |
Knowing and understanding the requirements of the standards regarding training and awareness is just a small step in putting a food safety training plan together. There are so many other factors that influence and impact the learning process.
- The learning environment should be conducive to learning. In plain English this means that the venue or room that is used, should allow for sufficient light, temperature, and seating arrangements in such a way that learning can be optimised. Sadly, when we offer our on-site training programmes, we often find groups of people crammed into dingy rooms with insufficient seating arrangements. In fact, in recent years we’ve become pretty uptight about the minimum infrastructure requirements that need to be in place in order for us to offer on-site training.
- Prevent distractions. During breaks, such as lunch and tea breaks, delegates are often “hi-jacked” by co-workers or managers to “help out with something quickly”. Now, we do understand that the production environment is dynamic and sometimes things go wrong, but very often these delegates return to the training room after being called away for more than an hour and more often than not, they never find their way back to the training room at all!
- Plan training ahead and inform delegates. When delegates are not informed of the training well in advance, they do not have time to make the necessary arrangements that will allow them to attend the course in full. In some instances, delegates are only informed of the training on the day of the training and sitting in a training room stressing about your work that’s piling up means that you are not actively engaged and therefore not experiencing the full learning benefit.
Training is an investment in time and money, and these distractions prevent delegates from focussing on the topics at hand and they miss out on important discussions during training.
We’ve been pretty pro-active ourselves and our 2021 training programme is ready and waiting for you to explore. Remember, everything you see on our website can be offered as on-site training on a date that suits YOU! Our programmes are also delivered by facilitators who can inspire delegates to change their views and behaviours and provide the peace of mind that the food we manufacture is safe to eat.
If you desperately need training before the end of the year, we’ve got you covered with the following public workshops still lined up for 2020:
- 2-day HACCP Workshop: 9 – 10 November 2020 (Paarl or via Zoom)
- 2-day Advanced internal Auditing Workshop: 16 – 17 November 2020 (Paarl and Johannesburg)
- 4-day FSSC Implementation Workshop: 23 – 26 November 2020 (Paarl or via Zoom)
- 3-day BRCGS Implementation Workshop: 23 – 25 November 2020 (Paarl or via Zoom)
- 1-day Food Safety Culture Excellence Workshop: 2 December 2020 (Paarl or via Zoom)
Be AWESOME!
Food Bites Team.