UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - This fall, the new school year will bring increased food safety to children throughout Pennsylvania, thanks to a joint effort by Penn State Cooperative Extension and the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

On May 1, Penn State Extension began offering Pennsylvania's school food-service directors and managers a one-day training program on developing food safety programs that use HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) principles. The training is part of a national response to the growing concern for food safety in schools.

The HACCP system is a preventive concept that reduces the risk of foodborne illnesses, such as salmonellosis and listeriosis, by instituting scientific food handling, monitoring and record-keeping procedures for every step in the food-preparation process.

"In 2005, the School Lunch Act was amended to require all schools to implement HACCP-based food-safety programs," says Catherine Cutter, associate professor of food science in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences. "For Pennsylvania, that means that any school using federal Child Nutrition Program funding to offer a school lunch or breakfast is mandated by law to have a HACCP program in place by the start of the coming school year.

"Penn State Extension approached the state Education Department about a partnership to offer training to schools in all 67 counties to meet requirements for HACCP-based programs," she says. "We share the goal of ensuring that school breakfast and lunch products are served safely, and the training will provide school employees with an in-depth understanding of the potential hazards in each step of the food-preparation process, from receiving raw ingredients to preparation, cooling and serving."

Penn State Extension county-based educators will offer training for each county's school districts. District representatives should contact their local extension office or the state Education Department for information on scheduling, fees and location of the nearest training site. Training will be held at regional schools or at locations arranged by the extension educator. School district participation in the training program is not mandatory but food-safety programs are.

"Extension will be the sole provider of this approved HACCP training in Pennsylvania through an agreement with the state Department of Education," Cutter says. "School districts will have through August to get all of their food-preparation personnel trained, as well as plans written and implemented to be in compliance with this new regulation."

The specially developed training is endorsed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Food Service Management Institute, and the trainers are all ServSafe-certified instructors. Additional training information is on the Web.

"This training is different from any other HACCP I've ever seen," says Cutter. "It's really quite easy, and it could change the way that school lunch rooms operate. Every HACCP food plan is different at each school, since each has different equipment and ways of doing things. One school might heat frozen pizza, another may make pizza from scratch. HACCP takes into account the different steps in each process."

For more information, call your county Penn State Cooperative Extension office, or contact Cathy Cutter at 814-865-8862 or by e-mail at cnc3@psu.edu.

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EDITORS: Contact Cathy Cutter at 814-865-8862 or cnc3@psu.edu

Gary Abdullah Writer/Editor Phone: 814-863-2708 E-mail: gxa2@psu.edu