According to many owners, executives, and directors of food production, processing, and distribution companies, they want to see a positive return from food safety training. “Food safety training should help improve efficiencies, improve quality and reduce overall costs, both expected and unexpected,” says Shiv Singh, BNA Life Science Regulatory Manager at Brenntag North America.
Benefits from food safety training should include and promote:
- Meeting regulatory requirements
- Meeting consumer expectation
- Improved efficiency, productivity, and profit
- Greater employee satisfaction and decreased turnover
- A clearer mindset among employees regarding food safety considerations
- A developed sense of ownership and accountability toward food safety
When it comes to HACCP training, Who? What? When? and How? are questions that have an ever-increasing variable of answers. Solutions such as outreach programs, consultants, classrooms, online and self-directed are only a few possibilities. Corporate culture will usually dictate how training is delivered but many are breaking with tradition and turning to online training for HACCP certification.
Here is a case study of one of our clients. They are one of the 10 largest fresh produce companies in the world.
In March 2017, a large fresh produce processing company with processing facilities located throughout the United States, Mexico, and Canada had to provide HACCP training for 23 of its employees. The facilities are SQFi level II certified and key employees would require Level II HACCP training and certified by someone recognized by the International HACCP Alliance to meet their auditor’s training requirements.
The company’s food safety director was considering hiring an outside consulting firm to go to each facility to train the employees, having each employee attend external training classes, or having the employees take the training online.
In-house training, 2-day workshop with a HACCP trainer
In the first scenario, the company would incur expenses and costs due to the fee for the consultant, the time the employees spent in the classroom and away from production, and additional expenses, for example, lunches and travel.
| What | Price | QTY | Cost |
| Instructor-led workshop | $1,800 | 4 | $7,2000 |
| 18 hours of paid training per employee (paid $23 per hour) | $450 | 23 | $10,350 |
| Travel + hotel | $700 | 4 | $2,800 |
| Lunch and extras | $50 | 23 | $575 |
Off-site training, 2-day workshop with a HACCP trainer
The second scenario sees the company sending each of its 23 employees to be trained at off-site locations. Employees would be paid for their time. The cost of the course per employee is, on average $700 and lunch and transportation are paid for. The employees would be offsite for 2 days.
| What | Price | QTY / F | Cost |
| Classroom training led by Instructor | $700 | 23 | $16,100 |
| 18 hours of paid training per employee (paid $23 per hour) | $450 | 23 | $10,350 |
| Travel | $50 | 23 | $1,150 |
| Lunches and extras | $25 | 23 | $575 |
Online HACCP training
The third scenario is online training. The company would enroll 23 employees in an online HACCP course recognized by the International HACCP Alliance. The online courses had to be recognized by their auditor, the International HACCP Alliance, and The SQFi (their food safety scheme). They investigated a number of online sites that proved that they could offer online level II HACCP training.
The employees would take the course, on their own time, over a period of 2 months. If the employee is required to take the course within the next week they would be paid for their time. They could have access to the course and material for 1 year and have access to the course from anywhere as long as they have an internet connection.
| What | Price | QTY | Cost |
| Online HACCP course | $299 | 23 | $6,877 |
There were five main considerations to evaluate; scheduling, quality of the courses, consistency, certification, and cost.
Scheduling
As the courses were being given onsite at 4 different locations and at only specific times during the calendar year, they considered that not all of their employees would make it to the training due to illness, time off, and scheduling conflicts (they run 24 hours a day).
They thought about the consistency and quality of the trainers and their delivered content. They thought about being able to revisit the content and the course throughout the employees’ tenure. Ultimately, what prompted them to think about alternative solutions was the overall cost.
Quality
Without having taken any of the instructor-led courses it was hard to evaluate the content and the delivery of each trainer. The online course could be audited by everyone connected to food safety and other regulatory requirements prior to purchase.
Consistency
Professional trainers are good at being consistent, but as they are human to have good days, great days, and some bad ones, incur insomnia, stress, etc. even their audience can have a dramatic impact on how they deliver their training. Live training is hard to be perfectly consistent so one audience will get something different than the next.
Online training is consistent as it’s the same content delivered in the same way. The delivery has been developed by food safety professionals, and pedagogical consultants as well as by food processing facility owners.
Certification
A certificate of completion recognized by the International HACCP Alliance was a requirement.
Cost
As any business must do, evaluate the cost vs. return. The return they wanted for their cost was a HACCP knowledgeable employee holding a certificate of completion recognized by the International HACCP Alliance.
Conclusion
After careful consideration, the food safety director decided to enroll his employees in the online course. Each employee took the course on their own time, they passed the final exam with a minimum score of 80% and did so within the 2-month timeframe. They still had access to the course for an additional 10 months. Each employee received their certificate along with the seal from the International HACCP Alliance. The company managed to save between $14,488 and $21,298.
Everyone who took the course was pleased with the interface. They said it was intuitive and that the content was clear and logical.
The administration liked the online course because they had administrative rights to their own unique site. They could add users, enroll them in courses, monitor their activity, communicate with them, and manage their certificates.
eHACCP.org‘s goal is to deliver the best course content, consistently, through an online medium that is accessible to everyone at a fraction of traditional costs.
Please contact us should you have any HACCP training needs now or in the future. We’ll be happy to show you our platform and allow you to evaluate the content for your facility’s requirements.
