I
always tell students in the beginning of the course that they would receive
many information about food hygiene and food safety practice in the 3 hours
course. And, I encourage them to
practice the knowledge in the workplace so that they can remember the concept
and skills and eventually make the practices a habit. If
they do not do that, it is likely they will forget more than 75% of the course
content. For now, food handlers are
just need to attend the course once in a life time. They do not need to go
through a refreshing training. So, if
food handlers practice the food handling knowledge, they would improve and
maintain the correct food handling practice.
Last
2 months, I had organized a practical food handling course for FREE. I invited
my regular customers to attend the course. Although the response is not up to
my expectation, I did it as I need to record the course for my HRD Corp Trainer
assessment. There were several representatives from Amber Park Porridge Café
and a retiree attending the course. I am
taking this opportunity to appreciate their supports in the course. In the course, I design several activities
for students to refresh on what they learned from me before. I was really happy
when they still remember the correct food handling practice. Some of them attended my course 3 years ago
and yet they still remember the course content.
When
food handlers understand the importance of food hygiene and food safety, and
they practice it, day by day, they are actually building a habit and this help
them automatically preventing their customers from suffering of food poisoning.
And, they would attend future premise inspection confidently, as they know what
should they do and what shouldn’t they do while handling food.
Well,
what is the importance of getting your food handlers to maintain the correct
food handling practice, from the aspect of business? Imagine when your food
handlers concern about food hygiene and safety, they will make sure the
handling does not cause food contamination and to prevent your customers from
suffering food poisoning. With that, did you noticed that your food handler
team is actually taking care of your business?
So, food handlers must have a strong foundation of food handling
practice. And, this couldn’t be achieved by only attending a course.
One
of the requirements of MeSTI holder is that every food handler must has a
attendance certificate of Food Handlers Training Course. The QC team, not only to arrange all new food
handlers to attend the course, but they also design and organise internal
training for every food handler. This is to ensure every food handler to have
refreshing training so that they can always remember the correct way of
handling their food products.
Some
restaurant management team remind their food handlers about correct food
handling by gathering the team in a weekly meeting, where they discuss various
of circumstances and issues the food handlers team encounter daily. And the team has mutual agreement of new job
arrangement in the meeting. There are also
restaurants utilise checklist to check if certain practices are done. For example, the cleaning checking in toilet.
This is also another good reminder for
the food handler team to remember their responsibility to ensure hygiene. MeSTI certifited food factory is practicing
the checklist system intensively. They need to keep the checklist as the proof
during audits or when there is a need to retrieve food inspection data.
Therefore,
practicing the knowledge of FHC content would gradually improving the food handling
skills of food handlers and maintain the food hygiene and safety in food
premise.
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