Developing comparable skills and talent across the broader food safety workforce is a challenge. The challenges can include limited resources, lack of competencies from which to build curriculum, lack of standardized curriculum, and alignment with the needs of the target audience. These challenges are universal across the food system for both industries (food producers, manufacturers, and food service) and government (regulators and inspectors). These challenges can be even more pronounced in low and middle-income countries, where the food safety workforce is unable to get the training they want and need in order to increase their capacity. Food safety programs from such countries often must rely on donor-driven training programs (such as FAO, UN, WTO) to address minimal needs. However, there are a growing number of examples of innovative and successful initiatives in training, education, and workforce capacity building across food production, government, industry, and academic sectors. Collaboration between these sectors is key in optimizing the safety of the food supply of any country as each has a role to play, and can learn from the others.
This session will present successful programs, explore available resources, examine challenges, and call for the need for a trans-national competency-based learning framework to build a strong global food protection workforce.