Earlier this year, the Food Safety Task Force of the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy recommended developing a training course for the dairy industry that would focus on pathogen-control guidelines, principles, techniques and approaches for the entire dairy industry. Food-safety experts from IDFA and Innovation Center member companies worked with Joe Stout, president of Commercial Food Sanitation, to develop a pilot training session, called the Dairy Plant Food Safety Workshop Pilot, which took place May 10-11 in Chicago.

The course covered food-safety fundamentals on sanitation, sanitary design, the development of standard operating procedures and environmental monitoring techniques, as well case studies. Several checklists and other worksheets, developed in support of the workshop, are now available for download.

Jon Gardner, IDFA vice president of regulatory affairs and international standards, worked on developing the curriculum and was a presenter during the pilot program. Gardner and Clay Hough, IDFA senior group vice president, are members of the Food Safety Task Force, and IDFA managed the logistics for the pilot.

The Dairy Plant Food Safety Workshop will now be rolled out for all interested participants who create and manage pathogen-control programs in the dairy industry. The next course will be offered on July 26-27 in Chicago. More details are available here. 

For more information, contact Gardner at jgardner@idfa.org.