After receiving two low scores for dining hall health inspections last spring, University of Georgia Food Services is taking extra health and safety precautions to begin the new school year.

“We take food safety very seriously in the department,” said Bryan Varin, associate director of meal plan operations at UGA. “It’s something we focus a lot of time and energy on.”

All employees are required to complete a food safety course called ServSafe provided by the National Restaurant Association, Varin said.

“We go through intensive training with our managers, full-timers and student employees as well,” he said. “We’re constantly monitoring our practices, making improvements where we see that they need to be, reinforcing policies that we currently have that work. So it’s very important to us to stay on top of this and to constantly monitor and train and follow-through with employees and ourselves to make sure we’re doing the right thing.”