International Produce Training

I am happy to announce the date of the second group training event held in conjunction with Southeast Produce Council.  The dates of the two training classes are:

          May 19-20, 2010
            October 6-7, 2010

These training events will be held at Merchants Distributors, Inc, Hickory, NC.  These training classes provide an excellent opportunity for participants to receive a training  program based on the inspection procedures and guidelines of many commodities.  The course agenda is structured to allow particiapants with extensive hands-on instruction.  Nine commodities have been chosen for the first class, and nine different commodities will be covered in the second training class.

The classes will include about 4 hours of reviewing the inspection basics and procedures, the inspection terminology, sampling procedures and the explanation of reading and understanding the U.S. Grade Standards for fresh fruit and vegetables.
 
The remainder of the lessons are devoted to individual commodities, such as the inspection instructions, defect identification, defect scoring guidelines and the tolerances involved for that particular commodity.  Each lecture is followed up with a demonstration and/or hands-on grading exercise where the participants will actually inspect a carton of produce based on the U.S. Grade Standard.  Official USDA visual aids are introduced as well as the necessary inspection equipment, such as sizing rings, a refractometer or a penetrometer.

For registration and lodging information and to review the course agenda, please click here.

See you there!

You will find a new feature added to my home page. 
“Take the IPT Quiz” will take you to a page devoted to quizzes designed to test your fresh produce inspection knowledge.  The quizzes are designed to challenge all skill levels.  For those slightly less experienced, utilize the Inspection Guidelines for your reference.  I’ll update the quizzes periodically and provide you additional opportunities to test your knowledge.

If you have any suggestions of quiz topics (apple quiz, citrus quiz, vegetable quiz) be and sure and let me know.

With every one’s budgets being closely scrutinized, it has never more important than now to make sure you are spending your training dollars wisely.  As training expenses are usually the first targets to take a hit, with some careful planning you can still ensure your staff is properly trained at minimum cost.

Most produce companies utilize the “hand me down approach,”  as a seasoned QA personnel passes down their knowledge to those new to the produce world.  Although this may appear to be cost effective at first glance, the experienced workers may not be as qualified or up-to-date on the new scoring guidelines and grade standards as you would hope.  They may actually be passing down incorrect information to the future QA Staff of your company.  These mistakes could lead to huge losses by receiving produce with quick moving defects, such as russet spotting on lettuce, or bitter pit on apples and rapid moving decays, such as anthracnose on watermelons, or bacterial soft rot on tomatoes, or transportation problems with chilled or frozen product.

When making decsions on your training needs, remember a few points to help keep your costs down, but still enure an effective training program:

• * Don’t pay for individual registration fees and travel expenses to attend a training class, when it is more affordable to bring the trainer to you
• * Create a training class with the proper objectives for your company. (Don’t waste your time on attending a training class on commodities that are of no interest to you)
• * Keep the class size small, to ensure your staff is receiving personalized instruction.
• * Not all training has to be formal. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box and request a “hands-on” training method.  Many people learn better from seeing and watching than by sitting and listening.

“Remember, for learning to take place with any kind of efficiency students must be motivated. To be motivated, they must become interested. And they become interested when they are actively working on projects which they can relate to their values and goals in life.”
Gus Tuberville, President, William Penn College

Please comment if you have any ideas, suggestions or comments to share, concerning your training program.