Food Premises Regulation and Food Safety
In British Columbia, food establishments are regulated by the Food Premises Regulation Act created in 2002. This health act was created in order to make food establishments all over the province safe for the public. The act requires all establishments to have a trained operator present at all times during operation. If the trained staff member will not be present, he was to have a replacement. The trained staff member should not simply be ‘trained’, he/she should be ‘certified’. The food safety training certificate should have been issued by a health officer for it to be valid.
Surrey First Aid
The importance of food safety is emphasized by the World Health Organization because diarrheal diseases kill more than two million people all over the world annually. The deaths are entirely preventable and easily managed, with proper food safety and case reporting. In order to decrease the incidence of foodborne illness in the city, the food safety training program – dubbed FOODSAFE – is being offered at Surrey First Aid.
The program was funded by the BC Ministry of Advanced Education and Labour Development and provincially handled by the BC Center for Disease Control (BCCDC) and the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA).
FOODSAFE training
At Surrey First Aid, there two levels of food safety and sanitation training.
- Level 1 targets frontline service workers, or members of the staff who directly come into contact with the food products. The level is largely skill-oriented, though emphasis is placed the essentials/basics of food safety and sanitation.
- Level 2 is an advanced program for supervisory staff, focused on planning rather than skill-building. The basic concepts are still tackled but no longer emphasized.
- Level 1 is eight hours long and level 2 is twelve hours long.
After you complete training, we award you with a FOODSAFE training certificate that is valid for five years. Before it expires, you may take a refresher courses at Surrey First Aid. It is a short program lasting only three hours and focuses on essentials and updates to food safety.
Special training: correspondence
Training by correspondence is a special training option for all our working students. Unlike a standard classroom or an online virtual classroom-type course, training by correspondence doesn’t follow a strict schedule 0r submission deadlines. Instead, students just have to finish the course in six months, eight months if they choose to apply for an extension.
Getting started: Foodborne illness
Foodborne illness can be caused by the ingestion of pathogens. Pathogens are microorganisms that contaminate food because of improper handling. The most common pathogens that infect humans are the Norovirus, Campylobacter, E. coli, Salmonella, and Staphylococcus aureus. The signs and symptoms of foodborne illnesses caused by these pathogens are very similar to each other, which is why specific diagnosis is only obtained with blood work.
Common signs and symptoms: nausea, vomiting, headache, diarrhea
Severe symptoms can lead to dehydration, which is very dangerous for very young and very old people. It is much harder to perform fluid resuscitation on these age groups, because they are very easily dehydrated and easy to overload with fluid.