Tag Archives: Training

Fatz Caf?: continuous training and reinforcement to establish a culture of food safety

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Chain Leader magazine reports that new kitchen employees at Fatz Café in South Carolina take a food-safety pre-test and must receive an 80 percent or higher before they can begin training. Workers take another practice quiz, then a final food-safety test. The company also promotes quarterly initiatives on food-safety topics that are discussed at the monthly operator-partner meetings. Handouts and new training tools are sent via mail and e-mail, and presented during pre-shift meetings.

Director of Training Sara Anderson said,

"We were already doing ServSafe [the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation’s food-safety training program] with our management, but we wanted to make sure that it was truly getting down to the front lines. …

"We really had to start marketing to them to get the buy-in on the importance of it. These habits take time to form. Educating people on why it’s so important has really helped make it happen and make it become real-life practices. We just keep adding more and more aspects of it. It’s become a part of our culture more than it ever was. … We’re sticking to basics and constantly talking about it."

Food safety information must be rapid, reliable, relevant and repeated. And to really create a culture that values microbiologically safe food, start marketing such efforts.

Ontario region calls for mandatory food service training

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Niagara Region politicians are calling on the province to make food safety preparation training mandatory for everyone in Ontario employed in the preparation and serving of food to the public.

The story says that the move comes on the heels of several high-profile incidents this summer of food poisoning in Niagara.

The region is also forging ahead with its own plans for a bylaw to require mandatory safety training for food handlers and servers. That’s expected to come later this year or early next year. But regional politicians said the best solution would be a provincewide rule requiring mandatory training.

We agree.

"Parenting and preparing food are about the only two activities that no longer require some kind of certification in Western countries. For example, to coach little girls playing ice hockey in Canada requires 16 hours of training. To coach kids on a travel team requires an additional 24 hours of training.

"It’s unclear how many illnesses can be traced to restaurants, but every week there is at least one restaurant-related outbreak reported in the news media somewhere. Cross-contamination, lack of handwashing and improper cooking or holding temperatures are all common themes in these outbreaks — the very same infractions that restaurant operators and employees should be reminded of during training sessions, and are judged on during inspections. Some jurisdictions — such as the city of Fort Worth, Texas — place so much importance on teaching these lessons they require mandatory food handler licenses and have invested in an infrastructure of training that demonstrates the city’s commitment to public health. Other cities and states have no training requirement.

"There should be mandatory food handler training, for say, three hours, that could happen in school, on the job, whatever. But training is only a beginning. Just because you tell someone to wash the poop off their hands before they prepare salad for 100 people doesn’t mean it is going to happen; weekly outbreaks of hepatitis A confirm this. There are a number of additional carrots and sticks that can be used to create a culture that values microbiologically safe food and a work environment that rewards hygienic behavior. But mandating basic training is a start."

Restaurant industry: Hire for attitude, train for skill

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The Nation’s Restaurant News, today published an article on a recent survey to gauge the state of training in the restaurant industry.

The sample pool was 58 corporate trainers, but represented companies that had between 200 and 65,000 employees; 43 per cent of the trainers were from casual-dining chains.

Jim Sullivan, chief executive of Sullivision, and the Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers, who approached Purdue researchers for help with the survey, was quoted as saying “Other industries, such as retail, automotive and manufacturing collectively track organizational learning and ‘best practices’ in training across companies, but the foodservice industry does not."

The study findings show that despite the push to incorporate more technology into training, 93 per cent of respondents believe one-on-one training is the best training method.

Respondents also indicated that better employee selection and hiring has a positive impact on training. One of the statements most respondents agreed with was, “Our HR strategy/training is most effective when we hire for attitude and train for skill.”

And, while a majority of respondents indicated that their companies were spending more on training than in the previous year, the annual training budget was a mean of $1.6 million, and a mean of 2.5 per cent of total sales; about 1/2 of what the automotive and retail industry spend.