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How a multilingual food hygiene course can improve health and safety standards

Photo shows an employee completing an online food safety certificate

No matter how reputable a business you run, the one thing customers can’t overlook is poor health and safety. This is especially true in the catering industry, where consistent food safety standards are paramount; there is no getting around undercooked food or badly cleaned appliances. Food hygiene must be preserved at all costs. But what happens if your employees are unable to communicate with one another directly?

Nowadays, restaurants and catering services are far more likely to employ foreign workers. When your kitchen is full of second-language English speakers, a lot can become lost in translation. Fortunately, a multilingual food hygiene course can help keep health standards high.

Choosing the Right Food Hygiene Course

Food business proprietors are lawfully required to supervise the food hygiene training of their staff. While a Level 2 Food Safety Certificate is not a legal necessity, it will cover all the food handling skills that workers in the business must be able to adequately demonstrate.

If a food handler is unable to show a solid understanding of food hygiene training, they may be recommended for refresher training by an environmental health officer or food business operator. Although a food hygiene certificate has no set expiry date, it’s validity is entirely up to the discretion of these authorities. Ensuring your staff are kept up to date on the latest food safety regulations will help you avoid the hassle of constant checks.

Of course, finding the time to train tens or even hundreds of staff can be tricky. Getting everyone in the same place at the same time can also be a real pain. To get around this issue, the simplest option is to enrol your staff in online Level 2 Food Safety training. Allowing them to complete the course from their own devices negates the need for an organised presentation. An online food safety certificate is just as valid as in-house training and can be completed at the user’s desired pace.

The importance of multilingual food hygiene training

Another advantage to doing Level 2 Food Hygiene online is that it can be tailored to a range of languages. In a cosmopolitan area, this can be an incredibly useful tool for learning. Chances are your kitchen is staffed by workers of more than one nationality, whose first language isn’t English.

This can lead to communication issues if not properly addressed — something which can be a big problem in food safety. Ensuring your employees are working to the same gold standard will significantly decrease the chances of bacteria outbreaks and food poisoning. While hand-washing and food preparation may seem like relatively easy tasks to master, for those with no previous food hygiene training, it can be difficult to start the process in an unfamiliar tongue. Multilingual food hygiene courses keep everyone on the same page, working at the same level of safety.

The interactive elements of an online course can also be particularly helpful for foreign workers. Rather than just sitting idly in front of a series of video presentations, they have the opportunity to test their own knowledge of the information they are learning. Visual learning aids such as this make the retention of key ideas much easier, so you know that staff are taking on board the importance of food hygiene procedures.

Although food hygiene training has traditionally been kept in-house, the advances in eLearning are making it simpler for everyone to access. By signing up your team to a multilingual food hygiene course, you can use the adaptability of the web to great effect.

Food safety should never be taken lightly. Finding new and innovative ways to keep all your staff in touch with changing legislation is vital for the continued success of your food business.

 

Author Bio:

Trevor Tweed is a self-employed Food Safety, Health and Safety and Fire Safety Consultant and Trainer. Having worked across a variety of industries for the last twenty years, Trevor is now running the multilingual food hygiene training course, Safety Bug Training — an online eLearning platform that offers food safety certification to anyone working in the catering sector.

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