International Produce Training (IPT) is pleased to announce a partnership with Southeast Produce Council, Inc, to provide two produce inspection training classes in 2010. The first class is scheduled for May 19-20, 2010, and the second two-day training class will be offered later in the year, in October. Both classes in 2010 will be held at Merchants Distributors Inc, Hickory, NC.
The training class agenda, along with registration information can be found at Southeast Produce Council’s web site. Click here for more information. The training class is open all members of Southeast Produce Council as well as non- members. Unfortunately the class size is limited to the first 20 registrants.
The second training class will cover inspection procedures on entirely different commodities from the first class. Opportunities to choose which commodities for the class will be made available during the May class.
I hope you are able to take advantage of this opportunity to hear of new inspection procedures, to ask questions about identifying defects, and work hands on with the product as we identify and review the scoring guidelines of the many commodities covered in the training class.
October 2nd, 2009 at 7:39 pm
This sounds really great. Is this inspection training similar to the inspection training offered by the USDA training center?
October 3rd, 2009 at 10:27 am
Yes, I agree, this is a great training opportunity for everyone. I was involved with the start up of the USDA’s training center and taught the industry classes for the USDA for about 7 years. This class does have similarities to the USDA’s produce inspection training.
Other than a substantial savings in the registration fee, another advantage I have is being able to determine what was successful with the USDA’s inspection training class and what the participants disliked about the USDA’s training program. I read the evaluations and noticed many of the attendees’ negative comments were directed to the length of time spent on the licensing function of PACA, and the time spent on reviewing the USDA’s own inspection forms and reports that are not used by industry members.
I am always open to improvements and suggestions to the training class and I my intent of instructional design is to tailor each class to the wishes of the attendees.