Food Safety Resources

Food safety is an integral part of successful child nutrition programs. These resources have been developed by the Institute, USDA, and other organizations to provide assistance in ensuring food safety in your program.

The Adult Day Care Food Allergy Fact Sheets provides information about all eight major food allergens, managing food allergies in adult day cares, and common questions about food allergies.

The Child Care Center Food Allergy Fact Sheets provide information about all nine major allergens, including: foods and products that may contain allergens, how to read food labels to identify allergens, menu modifications, and food allergy symptoms.

The Child Care Center Food Safety Guide provides guidelines and tips on how to safely prepare food in child care settings. This resource guide features the latest good food safety practices for personal hygiene; time and temperature control of food; cleaning and sanitizing; and safely preparing food for infants and young children. Use this guide to train new center staff in food safety and as a reference for food safety questions for child care centers.

Proper cooling techniques and guidelines for school nutrition professionals to cool foods safely. Video published 2014. Fact Sheets and Mini-Posters published 2015.

Resources highlight best practices for child nutrition employees in schools and in child care to use to prevent spreading pathogens that can cause foodborne illnesses.

Emergencies may disrupt food service operations and increase food safety risks. Although closures may occur in some cases, during many emergencies food service in schools continues. Some schools may also be designated as shelters and may need to provide food to the community. As a school nutrition professional, you play a critical role in ensuring that children continue to have access to safe meals during emergency situations. Developing, reviewing, and following an effective emergency response plan is an important component of your food safety program. This pocket guide is designed to help child nutrition program operators respond to emergencies but can be utilized by any nutrition assistance program operator in a variety of emergencies. Always follow local, State, and Federal food safety regulations and contact the local health authority as soon as an emergency impacts your food service operation.

The 14 Family Child Care Food Allergy Fact Sheets provide current food allergy information for family child care providers. Each of the nine major allergens has a fact sheet including the new major allergen sesame. The fact sheet set also includes information on how to handle a food allergy emergency, read food labels for allergens, avoid cross-contact, and make meal modifications for children with food allergies.

Food Allergies in School Nutrition is an in-depth training on managing food allergies in school nutrition programs. This updated training contains information about the new 9th major allergen, sesame, and incorporates guidelines and regulations from the 2021 Food Allergy Safety, Treatment, Education, and Research Act and the FDA 2022 Food Code. School nutrition professionals who take this course will learn about food allergies, food intolerance, reading food labels, avoiding cross contact, accommodating students with food allergies, laws regarding food allergies, and educating the school community about food allergies. Published 2014, revised 2018, revised 2023.

Food Safety Basics is a 4-hour training for new school nutrition managers and employees to provide a basic understanding of food safety. This training enables them to begin the job using safe food handling practices including good personal hygiene practices, important food temperatures, methods of preventing food contamination, and steps for developing a food safety program. Published 2017.

Food safety fact sheets are a 1-2 page information sheet that provides timely information on food safety topics.

Food Safety in Child Care, formerly known as Serving Safe Food in Child Care, is based on the four principles of the Fight BAC© program: Clean, Separate, Cook, and Cool. Developed specifically for child care providers in the CACFP environment, it provides four hours of face-to-face food safety training for foodservice employees in child care.

The Food Safety in Child Care online course is a recently revamped version of Serving Safe Food in Child Care. It focuses on applying the four key concepts of the USDA Fight Bac® program: clean, separate, cook, and chill into child care programs. 4 hours. Look for it on the Child Care tab of the ICN Online Course Catalog.

Food Safety in Schools is the updated version of Serving It Safe, 4th Edition which was renamed to clarify the target audience of the training. It is designed to provide school nutrition employees with up-to-date information on food safety. This training contains lessons and activities which allow participants to be actively involved in learning the food safety concepts needed to prepare and serve food safely and to keep school nutrition facilities safe and sanitary. The chapters cover topics such as: food safety, prevention of foodborne illness, basics of microorganisms, how to keep a clean and sanitary school nutrition facility, process for foodborne illness prevention, and food safety programs in schools. Published 2015.

ICN’s Food Safety in Schools online course, previously Serving it Safe, is an 8-hour course designed for child nutrition professionals.

Colorful 8 ½” x 11″ mini-posters provide information at a glance on current food safety topics. Designed for use in the food preparation and service areas.

Food Safety Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) are written practices and procedures that are critical to producing safe food. It is essential to have these SOPs in place and to train foodservice employees to use them. Use these files in MS Word® format or visit NFSMI’s interactive website to customize food safety SOPs for your operation. Published 2005. Updated 2016. ET63-05.

It is vital to use disposable on single-use gloves properly in child nutrition. They protect food from contamination from employee hands. These seven videos show child nutrition professionals when to change gloves and wash hands to keep food safe.

Intended Audience: General Child Nutrition Professionals
Subject: Food Safety & HACCP

Food Safety Spotlight (Micro-training) provides a method for using and training with many of the Institute of Child Nutrition’s food safety resources. This resource will have multiple series designed to give directors/managers an easy-to-use lesson plan for training staff in various food safety topics.  Each lesson is roughly 15 minutes. Every lesson plan contains the following:

  • learning objective,
  • statement explaining the importance of the topic,
  • list of materials,
  • instructions on how to present the information,
  • questions to ask staff, and
  • additional resources to strengthen or refresh the knowledge of the director/manager.

Mock Health Inspection (4-hour training) This is an interactive, activity-based training utilizing the concept of a mock health inspection. Participants will be able to explain why health inspections are conducted at least twice a year in schools and the role of periodic inspections and self-inspections to enhance the effectiveness of food safety management programs. Participants will be able to identify risk-based food safety practices and conduct a risk-based inspection.

TARGET AUDIENCE – Directors and Managers
KEY AREA: 2: Operations

Norovirus in Schools – (2-hour training)

Norovirus is the leading cause of foodborne illness, and it is estimated that more than half of all food-related outbreaks of illness are caused by norovirus. This training includes participant interaction and activities. Content focus:

  • Why norovirus is a concern in child nutrition settings
  • Symptoms of norovirus and how it is transmitted
  • Norovirus prevention and control strategies (Prevent, Assemble a Body Fluid Cleanup Kit, Respond to an incident, Total cleanup)
  • Resources for norovirus prevention and control

TARGET AUDIENCE – Everyone

KEY AREA: 2: Operations

Although the United States food supply is among the safest in the world, sometimes food may be unsafe or mislabeled. When there is reason to believe food is unsafe, or mislabeled, the food is recalled, or otherwise removed, from commerce. The food recall process for school nutrition programs differs depending on whether the recall affects USDA Foods or commercially purchased foods. This resource was developed to provide an overview of the recall process for USDA Foods with a focus on school nutrition programs.

For more information about recalls of both USDA Foods and commercial foods, sign-up for free recall alert notifications. USDA Commodity Alert System

Self register for a free email notification of recalls that affect USDA Foods at www.envoyprofiles.com/USDA-ALERTS/

FoodSafety.gov – To find the latest information about food recalls and to sign-up for free email notification of all FSIS and FDA food recalls, visit www.foodsafety.gov/recalls.

A series of fact sheets that provide an overview of food allergies, the top 9 food allergies, how to manage food allergies, and common questions regarding food allergies in school nutrition programs.

Los empleados pueden ser el elemento más crítico para mantener las instalaciones de nutrición escolar seguras e higiénicas. Sin embargo, también pueden ser responsables de la introducción de un riesgo de seguridad de alimentos en cualquier punto del proceso de producción de los alimentos.

Todos los empleados del departamento de nutrición escolar tienen mucho en juego ya que preparan y sirven alimentos cada día.

  • Servir alimentos que sean almacenados, preparados, cocidos o manejados inapropiadamente pueden ocasionar que los clientes se enfermen seriamente, incluso de manera mortal.
  • Las prácticas inseguras de nutrición en las escuelas también ponen en peligro a los empleados.
  • La buena reputación de un programa de nutrición escolar debe construirse basado en el servicio de alimentos seguros.

“Seguridad de Alimentos en las Escuelas” ha sido diseñada para ser muy interactiva de modo que usted pueda involucrarse activamente para aprender los conceptos de seguridad de alimentos que necesita para preparar y servir los alimentos con seguridad y para mantener las instalaciones de nutrición de su escuela seguras e higiénicas.

The Food Safety for Summer Meals resource page provides resources for site managers to train the staff of a Summer Food Service Program site on food safety best practices.

These resources promote food safety practices essential to a successful summer meals site including: practicing good personal hygiene, checking and documenting food temperatures, and proper cleaning and sanitizing. These practices reduce the risk of a foodborne illness outbreak and ensure that the food children consume is safe. This prevents children and staff from becoming sick, possibly causing the shutdown of the site and bad publicity for the site, sponsor, and program.

The information presented on this resource page may or may not apply to all summer meals sites, but can be adapted by your program as applicable.

These documents were designed to provide school nutrition programs with resources for planning, maintaining operations, and recovering from a loss of water service. Resources include a resource guide; checklists for planning, responding, and recovering from a loss of water; and posters for a water emergency. Published 2016.

The purpose of a food safety plan is to ensure the food served to children in the Child Nutrition Programs is safe. By controlling hazards that may occur or may be introduced into foods, school nutrition employees can safeguard food. An effective food safety program will help control food safety hazards that might occur during all points in foodservice ‒ receiving, storing, preparing, cooking, cooling, reheating, holding, packaging, transporting, and serving. A truly effective food safety plan needs to be developed for a specific school nutrition program (SNP). By developing a food safety plan for the specs of a school (equipment, staff, physical location, etc.), the number of hazards can be significantly reduced for that site. The goal of this 2.5-day workshop is for participants to take a detailed draft of a school-specific, HACCP-based food safety plan back to their SNPs. This instructor-led workshop incorporates individual work, group discussion, partner work, pre-made templates, and other resources.

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