The College of the Sequoias Training Resource Center (TRC) has been awarded two grants to support California’s Central Valley food and agricultural industry by providing affordable food safety trainings. With many of their trainings being delivered live online, the TRC is excited to start offering some of these classes in person! Depending on the training course, the fee will be just $20-$60 for eligible companies. Without these helpful grants, the prices would be $199-$699 each.
One recent trainee comments on a previous HACCP class: “The trainer has by far been the best HACCP trainer I’ve had & never a boring moment for me”.
The Produce Safety Rule training will be held once per month, with the next open class on June 22 in person on the COS Tulare Center campus. This training is certificated by the Produce Safety Alliance. This class will provide a foundation of GAPs, FSMA requirements, and details on how to develop a farm food safety plan.
The Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) training will take place on August 18 in person and October 13 (location TBA). GAP training is critically important for individuals working in Agriculture, as well as those working in Food Processing.
The Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) class will be held on August 25-26 in person, October 18-19 in person and November 15-16 online. These trainings are accredited by the International HACCP Alliance. HACCP is a management system in which food safety is addressed through the analysis and control of biological, chemical, and physical hazards.
The Preventive Controls for Human Foods (PCQI) class is accredited by the Food Safety Preventive Controls Alliance. This class will be held in person August 9-11 and live online September 27-October 1 and December 6-8. This regulation is intended to ensure safe manufacturing / processing, packing and holding of food products for human consumption in the United States.
The Foreign Supplier Verification Program training is accredited by the Food Safety Preventive Controls Alliance. This training will take place on September 14-15. New Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) regulations require that importers must have a program in place to verify that their foreign suppliers are producing food in a manner that provides the same level of public health protection as the preventive controls or produce safety regulations.
A NEW training has been developed and being offered with these special grant prices as well. This class is called Internal Auditing – Food Safety. This class will take place July 13 & 15 online and November 2 & 4 in person. This interactive course provides a comprehensive introduction to internal auditing that can be applied to any food safety scheme or quality management system standard such as FSMA (Food Safety Modernization Act) and ISO 9001, as well as GFSI standards such as SQF, Global GAP and BRC.
Apart from the grant-funded trainings, the TRC is also offering an SQF training live online July 26-29. This training provides key understanding of the SQF Code Ed. 9 requirements. The trainer will provide an attendance certificate that will have the SQFI logo on it. It will specify that the training was provided on the Ed. 9 of the SQF Food Safety Code. This class is $629 regular price or $229 with ETP funding.
To find out more about these grants or to see a list of upcoming classes, please visit the COS Training Resource Center website at www.cos.edu/trainingcenter . You can also email the Training Resource Center at trainingcenter@cos.edu or call at (559) 688-3130.