Hotel Workers Receive Refresher Course In Food Safety

With Barbados being a sought-after venue for conferences and events, it is crucial for hotel workers to be up to date with international standards in food safety.

To this end, over 30 participants from hotels across the island are benefiting from a three-day Advanced Food Safety Training and Certification Course, being conducted by the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) at Accra Beach Resort, Rockley, Christ Church.

The certification, which is valid for five years, covers the principles of food safety, “from purchasing to service”.

Executive Director of CARPHA, Dr. Lisa Indar, one of the facilitators of the course, said it was based not just on regional standards but on international practice.

“Barbados as well as other countries are really putting their best foot forward in terms of meeting these international standards whether it be for food safety, service, or other measures. And, we have to do that because we are tourism dependent in the Caribbean. Our travellers are coming from the United States and the United Kingdom, so we have to meet international standards.

“We believe the more we train, the better. The more we surveil and monitor illness and capture it before it spreads to large numbers, that’s important. We would have gaps because things sometimes slip through the cracks…. The idea of building capacity is to keep us vigilant all of the time so that we reduce occurrences as much as possible,” Dr. Indar emphasised.

The course covers topics such as Providing Safe Food: Foodborne Illness and Food Safety; Forms of Contamination and Pathogens: Bacteria, Viruses, Parasites and Toxins; The Safe Food Handler: Foodborne Outbreaks caused by Food Handlers; Food Safety Management Systems and HACCP; and Cleaning and Sanitising.

She said the training was just on time with the SEForAll Sustainable Energy Global Forum, starting tomorrow, Wednesday, March 12, at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre. Close to 1,300 delegates are expected to participate in the two-day forum.

“Barbados is having the SEForAll conference and all of these hotels [participating in the training] are involved in that. We don’t want people to come and get sick; we are making sure we re-emphasise the principles of food safety,” CARPHA’s Executive Director pointed out.

Dr. Indar added that the Advanced Food Safety Training and Certification Course was also a pre-requisite for CARPHA’s upcoming annual health conference, which is scheduled to take place in Barbados from May 7 to 9, this year, under the theme “Mental Health: The Hidden Pandemic”.

Author: Melissa Rollock

Public: March 11, 2025