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Education and Training in the food sector - Survey Report

Domestic Food Review

June 2006

Executive summary

This report is a snapshot survey of training in the food industry with just over 400 responses nationwide. The report shows that nearly 80% of individuals surveyed reported receiving some food safety training and less than 10% of organisations reported offering no training.

There are approximately 35 specific food safety related unit standards registered with the New Zealand Qualification Authority Framework over many Industry Training Organisations.

The highest uptake of specific unit standard training is in the food service and retail sectors where Units 167 and 168 are by far the most common units used.

Non-unit standards based training also makes up a significant proportion of training provided across New Zealand and the uptake of both types of training (unit based and non-unit based) is highest in the food service sector.

The report indicates that training uptake is equally driven by both personal motivation and organisational requirements.

All sectors indicate that training is delivered reasonably equally by in-house training providers and external providers although the majority of training delivered was not developed for a specific sector, instead existing or generic training was used.

The highest uptake of customised training is delivered in the food service sector, which is probably due to food safety training being delivered with other position based food service training.

All of the Polytechnics and Universities surveyed are NZQA registered with 71% of Private Training Establishments and 50% of contract trainers delivering NZQA unit standard based courses. The majority of these courses do not have a refresher or renewal component.

View the full report

Education and Training in the food sector - Survey Report [PDF 770K]