Global Food Safety Resource (GFSR) has announced that food safety trainers can now apply to post their training courses on its newly developed Safe-Food Training Hub (SFTH), a patent-pending, e-commerce training solution that provides industry with on-demand, expert-led quality training courses, both online and offline.

GFSR President and CEO, Tina Brillinger, says the new platform was designed to make it easier for food companies operating in domestic and global markets to source and buy quality food safety training. Using select filters, food companies have the ability to build a course curriculum and purchase courses in bulk. Purchasers will be encouraged to provide anonymous user feedback, making it the first of its kind in a competitive marketplace.

“The Safe-Food Training Hub employs new technology that was developed by Global Food Safety Resource to give food companies a flexible platform, where training can be scheduled around production time to meet necessary compliance to new global regulations, while providing options for skills development for continuous improvements to maintain standards,” Brillinger says. “It enables food safety trainers to easily upload their course collections to gain visibility with their target audiences more rapidly through GFSR’s powerful, optimized platform. Trainers no longer need to invest in a LMS as courses can be created efficiently within the Hub itself.”

Quality training vendors are able to sell their courses directly through the SFTH platform, which offers a user-friendly and secure experience through PayPal’s gateway, and allows monitoring of how many courses have been purchased. Expert technicians are on hand to support training providers and ensure a seamless integration of courses within the SFTH platform; robust cyber-security and privacy settings ensure peace of mind around data protection.

“SFTH will be the only full-service online catalogue for multilingual food safety training courses,” Brillinger says. “Trainers who qualify to post their courses on our platform have the opportunity to reach more than 1,000,000 potential customers worldwide, so they can increase their enrollments and revenue while reducing their overhead costs.”

The SFTH platform allows companies to monitor and track employee student progress through a secure online portal. The online course catalogue provides for flexible learning options and the ability to filter courses based on type of training, industry sector, training provider, date, location, price, language, and user feedback. Course offerings include both online and offline training options, and allow businesses direct access so they can organize in-house training at scale.

Brillinger notes that food companies surveyed in the 2018 Global Food Safety Training Survey identified their top three food safety challenges as scheduling time for training, verifying that effective training has taken place, and organizing refresher training. The report also determined that 27% of companies have incomplete training records.

With the Safe-Food Training Hub, students who successfully complete any course offering receive accreditation directly from the course vendor which can be kept on their profile. In addition, all students will receive a digital record of completion from the Safe-Food Training Hub for compliance-driven purposes.

SFTH is proud to partner with a number of early adopters, including Integrity Compliance Solutions, BD Food Safety Consultants, The Recall Institute, ITA Group Inc. and Euro Servizi Impresa. With early interest we expect to have more than 50 courses available in our library within the next three months, on topics related to PCQI, FSMA, SFCR, SQF, BRC, HACCP, Food Fraud, Food Safety Culture, Recalls and more.

“The growing risks associated with food safety have the potential to not only harm consumers but they can also damage both a company’s, and a country’s brand,” Brillinger says. “We believe our innovative digital approach to food safety training is the solution that the industry needs in order to sustain growth and meet international compliance in the years to come.”