Workforce and Culinary Education

Published: 2022
By Wendy Wedum

Over the last two years, the Conrad High School Family and Consumer Science teacher, Stacy Aaberg, helped her students be workforce ready through Food Handlers education and certification. Food Handler training is a basic course that teaches knowledge and skills to safely handle food for human consumption. Food handlers must be aware of foodborne illnesses, principles about time and temperature for food safety, proper personal hygiene practices, ways to prevent food contamination, cleaning and sanitizing among other principles. The certification is valid for three years and may give these students a hiring advantage. Other culinary classes included fermenting cabbage to make sauerkraut and how to butcher a chicken. Classes are hands-on, first demonstrating what to do, and then the students complete the action. Additional information included proper methods of cooking, safe food handling, the importance of sharp knives, equipment safety, cleaning and sanitizing before and after food preparation.