Training for food businesses
Training your team is key to the growth of any business.
The law in the UK requires those handling food to be trained to the appropriate level for their tasks. This can take the form of on-the-job and classroom based learning, but must include food safety training at an appropriate level. Developing your teams for business growth is an element for food businesses who are looking beyond their current turnover.
There are a number of food safety courses available which are accredited. These are either run as a classroom based session or on line. The Food Standards Agency has a series of free videos and links to support businesses here . The Bacteria Bites Business video shows what can happen when basic controls are not completed. Health and Safety training for all of the members of your team is also important, whether handling food or not, this should be also be refreshed on a regular basis. Always record training and check competency or understanding (record this too).
Remember whenever training is delivered to:
PLAN IT- CHECK IT- RECORD IT
- Plan it, so that you cover everything that you need to, and when you need to do it.
- Check understanding and competence.
- Record that the training has been done and acknowledged by the trainee, and that competence has also been checked.
Alimenti can deliver training which is bespoke to your organization, such as a live business continuity test to assess your systems and team reaction. This can be useful to develop and test your plans, and team’s understanding. It can also lead to discussions around how to improve the paper based plans.
Alimenti can help with developing your team, adapting the content to your business, and creating modules specific to your business. Call me to discuss this further.
About the author:
Louise Roberts is an experienced food safety practitioner, who is a microbiologist by training. She is the driving force behind Alimenti Food Sciences Ltd.
When she was helping others to negotiate the approval process for Sodexo in her role within the buying team as technical lead, in 2016, she decided to go for it and Alimenti Food Sciences was born.
She spends most of her days working with clients on their food safety paperwork and loves every minute of it. For Louise, “what I do is so much more than just a job, it’s something I picture myself doing for years to come because it allows me to take away the stress of food safety and helping my clients sleep better, and I honestly couldn’t imagine doing anything else”.
She is also a mum and obsessed with good coffee.
To help her clients and other food business owners, Louise developed a pack of documents to offer a “done for you” paperwork pack. This has been agreed with her Primary Authority Partner (Worcestershire Regulatory Services) and is available shortly. For more information click here.
