Education and Training

Abstract

Education is what you achieve after training. In the retail food business, it should be defined purposely based on what you want others not usually educated in food safety to know and do. In order for an employee to sustain an education (and thus competency to perform task and own this responsibility), there must be a formal training process targeted to the required education of the employee. There must be a structured curriculum based on the prerequisite experience of the employee, food safety specifications built into the task (e.g., recipes), a means to deliver the training to diverse students (e.g., age, language, lack of food service experience), hands-on demonstration, and a method to measure education of the student via knowledge test and application of the knowledge. The food safety training must also be appropriate to the education needed (and level of comprehension of the employee) at each position of food safety management desired at the retail level (food handler vs. manager) and corporate staff and required for all employees. Finally, the same curriculum should be offered in different delivery methods that will accommodate the students’ best means to learn and demonstrate competency (e.g., online Spanish course vs. lecture), and food safety education must be validated on a regular basis (audited) to determine when additional training is necessary.