Two new Certificate Courses to be offered at 2024 Food Safety Summit

By Adriene Cooper, Senior Events Manager, Food Safety Summit

Two brand new certificate courses will be offered at the 2024 Food Safety Summit including Preventive Controls for Human Foods 2.0 presented by the FSPCA and Active Managerial Control for Leaders presented by the Association for Food and Drug Officials (AFDO).  Both courses will begin on Monday, May 6, 2024, at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois. In addition, three returning courses including HACCP for Food Processing Personnel, Food Fraud Prevention, andCertified Professional – Food Safety (CP-FS) review course will be offered. The following are descriptions for these five pre-Summit courses: 

• NEW – Active Managerial Control (AMC) for Leaders – Join Steven Mandernach, Executive Director, Association of Food and Drug Officials for this new one-day AMC workshop for industry, designed to challenge franchisees and operations leaders by exploring the relationship between food safety culture, food safety management systems, and operational excellence within an organization. And best of all, the participants of this new AMC for Leaders workshop will have the option to access the AMC for Leaders Train-the-Trainer course, held virtually. Certificate of completion presented by AFDO.

• NEW – Preventive Controls for Human Foods 2.0 – Kathy Gombas, Senior Advisor, FSMA Solutions and Martin Bucknavage, Senior Food Extension Associate and Team Lead, Industry Food Safety and Quality, Penn State will lead this new 2.5-day course.  The Current Good Manufacturing Practice, Hazard Analysis, and Risk-based Preventive Controls for Human Food regulation (referred to as the Preventive Controls for Human Food regulation) is intended to ensure safe manufacturing/processing, packing, and holding of food products for human consumption in the United States. The regulation requires that certain activities must be completed by a “preventive controls qualified individual” who has “successfully completed training in the development and application of risk-based preventive controls.” This course developed by the FSPCA is the “standardized curriculum” recognized by FDA; successfully completing this course is one way to meet the requirements for a “preventive controls qualified individual.” This two-day course includes a certificate of completion presented by FSPCA.

• Certified Professional – Food Safety (CP-FS) Credential Review Course – This two-day course was developed by industry experts from across the country to provide participants with a review of the knowledge and skills necessary to pass the CP-FS Credential Exam. It also provides a solid overview of food safety standards and practices. This course provides the knowledge and skills necessary to help ensure safe food in any retail environment – as a quality assurance or quality control manager, a facility manager, a food-safe chemical supplier, or as a regulatory inspector/investigator.  This review course will be led by Melissa Vaccaro, Senior Food Safety Program Specialist for National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) who is presenting the course.

• Food Fraud Prevention Workshop and Certificate Course – Food fraud prevention is one of the most urgent and misunderstood food industry topics. This workshop begins with an overview of the food fraud problem before quickly shifting from “how to catch food fraud” to “how to prevent food fraud from occurring in the first place.” Building upon that overview, the afternoon will shift to conducting the food fraud vulnerability assessment. This assessment is a requirement for the Food Safety Certifications such as BRC, FSSC22000, IFS, SQF and others. These standards are based on the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) benchmark. The workshop ends with a focus on the Food Fraud Prevention Strategy and full implementation of a management system.  John Spink, PhD, Michigan State University; Roy Fenoff, PhD, The Citadel; and Brad Evans, Anti-Counterfeiting Strategy Group will lead this one-day course with a certificate provided by the Food Fraud Prevention Think Tank.

• HACCP for Food Processing Personnel – This 20-hour class given over 2.5 days covers the information needed for writing a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) Plan, as required by USDA for FSIS-regulated meat, poultry, or egg products, or for those producing foods under GFSI-format third-party audits requiring a HACCP-certified individual to oversee their food safety plan. Participants will gain information for creating, implementing, and documenting a HACCP program. Donna Schaffner, Rutgers University Food Innovation Center, will lead this course along with Kara Mikkelson, Joseph Meyer and William Lachowsky. Certificate is provided by the International HACCP Alliance.

The pre-Summit courses include breakfast, lunch and breaks, books/training material and certificate. Multi-Day course registration includes access to the Food Safety Summit education sessions, exhibit hall, and networking functions during non-course hours. To take advantage of early bird pricing, click here, to register before Friday, March 31, 2024. 

The 2024 Food Safety Summit Education program will offer a wide range of topics impacting industry professionals including advancing leaders, best practice sharing for traceability, the life of an outbreak investigation, using big data and AI, and much more. On Wednesday and Thursday from 10:30 am–2:30 pm, there will be dedicated Exhibit Hall time for attendees to learn about new solutions, engage in small group discussions in the Community Hub, listen to interviews with industry leaders in the Podcast Theater, attend free presentations by food safety experts in the Solutions Stages and in the Tech Tent, enjoy lunch, and network. For access to the full program and for attendee registration, visit  https://www.food-safety.com/food-safety-summit. 

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