Safe Food Handling Course
Consumers are becoming more concerned about the foods they purchase in grocery stores, restaurants, schools, and even hospitals due to the outbreaks of food borne illnesses such as listeria. Those that want to ensure their customers they are doing their best to ensure the food is safe from food borne illnesses may be interested in learning more about a safe food handling course.
Who needs a safe food handling course?
If you work in any type of food service such as health care facilities, school lunch programs, food service operations, food manufacturers, retail food suppliers, or any facility that creates, stores, or serves food products, you may need to take a safe food handling course
Is a safe food handling course required to work in the food industry?
This is a tricky question, as some states require at least one employee to carry a food handler’s certification while other states only require supervisors to have the certificate. In order to learn if you need to take the safe food handling course to obtain the certification, you should check with your local health department. Each state does have different requirements and will need to know these in order to ensure the safe food handling course you choose meets all the requirements.
Example of a safe food handling course
You can find short one hour courses for only $10 or three month courses for around $175. The more advanced courses will of course be a bit more; however, students will receive more training.
Example Topics offered in a safe food handling course for a three month course
- Personal Hygiene
- Housekeeping
- Sanitizing
- Pest Control Procedures
- Time Control
- Temperature Control
- Food Preparation
- Food Handling
- Proper use of Equipment
- Safe Water Supply
- Serving Food Safely
- Food Receiving and Storage
- Facility Maintenance
- Management Responsibilities
- Prevention of Food Borne Illness
Another popular safe food handling course is one created by the National Environmental Health Association. The course is recognized by federal regulations and is used throughout the nation for School Lunch programs. The course was designed by NSF international and Thompson, which utilizes both national HACCP and international HACCP standards.
The topics offered through this course include:
- Prerequisite programs
- Determining critical control points
- Record keeping
- Critical limits
- Verification
- Food defense
- Corrective actions
- Monitoring
With this course, all students need to take an exam to learn their preparedness to follow the HACCP plan along with food handling instructions. All students that score 90% or higher are better prepared to follow these standards.
Free safe food handling course
Some individuals may not be in search of certification, but still want to learn how to prepare, store, and serve safe food products to their family and friends or to their customers. In this case, you can find a wide array of courses available either online or through local health departments. You can learn more about the options available by contacting your local health department.
