Childhood Health

School Nutrition Conference

Food safety has become a major concern for all Americans, but especially for children who are at greater risk of food borne illness. School food service workers must receive 10 hours of training in food related fields each year to maintain their job. For the past 16 years, UGA Cooperative Extension agents in family and consumer science have offered six hours of training in nutrition and food safety to these workers each year. In 2007, School Nutrition Directors asked agents to present the ServSafe for Employees curriculum and an update on the Georgia Food Code for their employees. A total of 843 School Food Service Workers from 31 south Georgia counties received training in food safety using the ServSafe curriculum. Of this number, 710 of these employees (84 percent) passed the test with a score of 70 percent or higher. This training affected about 40,000 children in the Southwest District who received a total of nearly 14.5 million meals per year. (2007)

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