To help dairy plant professionals stay up to date with good laboratory practices and techniques, IDFA is again joining with Chestnut Labs to offer “Microbiological Testing: A Hands-On Food Safety Course,” November 1-3 in Springfield, Mo.
“This skills-building course provides tools needed to help build and maintain a strong food safety program in dairy plants,” said John Allan, IDFA vice president of regulatory affairs and international standards. “Developed exclusively for the dairy industry, it offers both a hands-on opportunity to learn proper lab testing practices and get up to speed on new regulatory requirements.”
Over the course of three days, attendees will learn to:
- Understand basic food microbiology, including common terminology and factors affecting microbial growth and survival in a dairy plant;
- Control pathogens of concern, based on manufacturing environments;
- Interpret certificate-of-analysis results;
- Comply with Food Safety Modernization Act regulations; and
- Use pathogen environmental monitoring (PEM) principles to design a robust PEM program.
Attendees will also learn techniques for proper plating; reading and interpreting common indicator microorganisms; preventing common mistakes in microbiological testing; choosing correct test methods and performing internal lab audits.
Registration for the course is available on the IDFA website.
For more information, contact Allan at jallan@idfa.org.