UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Food-safety training, developed by Penn State Extension and delivered to food-industry professionals and university students and faculty members in Ukraine, resulted in a significant and lasting improvement in participants’ food-safety knowledge, behavior, attitude and skills, according to researchers.
“We take for granted food-safety precautions in the U.S., and most of them come from more than a century of food-safety training provided by university extension systems across the country,” said research team leader Catherine Cutter, professor of food science in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences. “They are not routinely practiced in some other countries.”
The research was straightforward, noted Cutter, who also serves as Penn State Extension assistant director for food safety and quality programs. The comprehensive food-safety training program was delivered at the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences in Kyiv, Ukraine. The training included courses in sanitation, food microbiology and mycology, thermal processing, hazard analysis and critical control points, cereal quality, and food defense.