Food Safety and Hygiene

Food Safety and Hygiene

 This online course teaches good food safety practices and shows you how to professionally manage a catering area.

Food contamination could lead to unpleasant outcomes ranging from severe illness to loss of business for a catering outfit or restaurant. Food procurement, handling, processing and storage must be carried out with the utmost care to prevent contamination and spoilage of food. This course explains food contamination in detail and covers the measures, tools and regulations for safely handling food and managing a hygienic cooking area.

What You Will Learn In This Course

• Identify foods with a high risk of contamination and individuals vulnerable to contaminated food
• Outline the responsibilities of a food supervisor
• Explain the importance of a food safety management system (FSMS)
• Classify causes of food poisoning
• Define ‘cross-contamination’
• Highlight methods for preventing food contamination
• Illustrate the importance of temperature control to food safety
• Identify some tools for monitoring food and kitchen temperature
• Outline some proven methods of preventing food spoilage
• Describe some considerations for designing functional catering premises
• Identify some common pests that are likely to contaminate food
• Describe the training requirements for different kinds of staff in a catering organization

• Food Safety Management Systems (FSMS) maintain hygiene standards to prevent food poisoning.
• Food Safety Management Systems must be based on HACCP; an international standard for identifying, controlling, and eliminating food hazards. HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points.
• A good FSMS contains 8 steps. HACCP is designed to prevent biological, chemical, and physical hazards at each stage of food production, identifying and controlling problems before they occur.
• Food poisoning is caused by microbes such as bacteria, viruses, molds, and yeast. The severity of infection from contaminated food depends on immunity and general health.
• Parasites like amoeba and protozoa could also be responsible for foodborne illnesses. Food contamination could occur during growth, harvesting, storage, transport, or during cooking and serving.
• Cross-contamination is the transfer of contaminants from one surface or item, to another.
• Food contaminants could be microbiological, chemical, physical, or allergens. Biological contamination could be passive, direct, or indirect.
• There are three major routes for cross-contamination; food to food, people to food, and equipment to food. Food distribution and delivery constitute a major source of flood hazards.
• Common foodborne illnesses include salmonella, campylobacter, listeria, dysentery. Dysentery could either be caused by bacteria or amoeba.

Your SWOT Certificate is:

• Ideal for sharing with potential employers
• Include it in your CV, professional social media profiles and job applications.
• An indication of your commitment to continuously learn, upskill & achieve high results.
• An incentive for you to continue empowering yourself through lifelong learning.