The Environmental Health Department completed a one-day training session on Wednesday, Oct. 31 for food handlers and proprietors of small food establishments.

The aim of the workshop, which was hosted in collaboration with PAHO, was to improve standards on foods and services offered to consumers.

Ernie Pierre, an Environmental Health Officer and the facilitator for the event, said the workshop informed proprietors of safe food practices.

“Our role here today is to empower them more or less into safe food production within their food establishments. Through routine and inspection, we would have recognized that we need to focus quite a bit on training, because even when the equipment is provided within food establishments, the practices can predispose persons to food-borne illnesses if the food handlers don’t know what they are doing; and so today we are embarking on a drive. Basically we have had two sessions, one in the south and one in the north to empower those persons and to ensure that they are equipped with basic food safety principles, so that when they produce food from their establishments, they produce safe foods.”

Mr. Pierre said the training workshop is beneficial to food handlers and the consuming public.

“We are looking forward to an improvement in sanitation in food establishments, in their practices, and food hygiene principles, following this workshop. Secondly, it therefore means it can ease the burden on the Ministry in terms of the frequency of visits if those persons are in fact in compliance. It will also cause a lot of those food establishments to raise their standards and to ensure that they meet the benchmark, and as a result, protecting the consuming public from poor food practices, because they now know to how to prevent outbreaks, food contamination, and how to handle food safely.

Ministry officials are appealing to food handlers to comply with safe and healthy practices to prevent any mishaps.