Industry experience internship opportunities here at Food Microbiology Academy … combining science, innovation and entrepreneurship.

If you’re after an internship that sounds out from the others, then take a look at what we can offer. We have no physical location, so if you’re after a traditional laboratory-based internship, we cannot offer that. What we can offer is an entrepreneurial industry experience that challenges your mindset and attitude with a diversity of real-world work tasks. These prepare you for the 21st century workplace, giving you the right approach, which seems to be sadly lacking today. Attitude and mindset is far more difficult to master than reading an SOP in a laboratory and knowing what buttons to press on the latest instrument or piece of equipment. That’s how we are different. Contact Dr Philip Button at Food Microbiology Academy to find out more – philip.button@foodmicrobiology.academy.

South Dakota Cottage Food Law: Food Safety Training Requirements

Originally published on 25 August 2024 by Gavin Van De Walle If you choose to undertake the FoodSafePal South Dakota food handler training, you can get a discount off the training fee by using the discount code “foodsafety1” during the registration. South Dakota cottage food law South Dakota has among the most liberal cottage food law, thanks to a 2022 reform (1). This reform decreased the cost of entry to start a cottage food business while greatly expanding the varieties of food that can be sold. South Dakota cottage food producers must sell directly to consumers in-person at the producer’s primary residence, a farmers’ market, a roadside stand, or another temporary venue. They may not sell through third-party vendors like restaurants, grocery stores, or coffee shops. Approved cottage foods South Dakota cottage food law allows the following foods to be sold: Other foods require producers to complete a food safety training course every five years before selling. These foods include: Alternatively, cottage producers can submit their recipes for verification from a third-party processing authority, but this is a more costly and time-consuming option than taking a short, relatively inexpensive food safety training course. There are no specific requirements for this course other than it must be approved by the South Dakota health department. A South Dakota food handler training course wouldn’t qualify since they don’t cover food preservation techniques. Non-approved cottage foods include meats, poultry (including eggs), jerky, seafood, dairy products, honey, and non-food items like homemade soaps or lotions. Labeling South Dakota cottage food producers must label their products with the following information: The label must also include a disclaimer that states:  “This product was not produced in a commercial kitchen. It has been home-processed in a kitchen that may also possess common food allergens such as tree nuts, peanuts, eggs, soy, wheat, milk, fish, and crustacean shellfish.” Fresh fruits and vegetables, intact salad greens and herbs, non-packaged baked goods, frozen produce, nuts, grains, seeds, dry mixes, and fermented foods don’t require labeling. Summary South Dakota cottage food law allows for the sale of most homemade shelf-stable products. South Dakota requires food safety training to sell other products that require temperature controls. Ready-to-eat food safety Most cottage foods are ready-to-eat, meaning they don’t require further preparation or cooking. As such, it’s important to handle them safely so that you don’t contaminate them with disease-causing organisms called pathogens or other types of food hazards. Here are some tips to handle ready-to-eat (RTE) foods safely: Summary Most cottage foods don’t require further preparation or cooking — they are ready to eat. Keep them safe by washing your hands often, avoiding bare-hand contact, and separating them from raw animal foods. You should also clean and sanitize your equipment and utensils often and store those that require refrigeration on the top shelf. The bottom line Cottage foods refer to food produced by a person in their home and sold by that same person directly to a consumer. Cottage food laws exist to regulate what can and cannot be sold but also to make it easier to start a food business and increase access to local food. South Dakota cottage food law allows for the production and sale of many shelf-stable products, like fresh fruits and vegetables and baked goods. South Dakota requires food safety training or third-party review of recipes for the production and sale of certain temperature-controlled foods. Most cottage foods are ready-to-eat so you must handle them safely to reduce the risk of foodborne illness.

Thoughts on my career in food microbiology

By Philip Button – philip.button@foodmicrobiology.academy Lately, over the past few months, I’ve been working quite closely with some undergraduate students, from Monash University.  The joy of working with such talent, the next generation of scientists, is no doubt a privilege.  Being able to share my thoughts and insights, what I’ve done right, my journeys and most importantly what I’ve done wrong, with clear guidance to not leave it 20 or 30 years until you do this, or think that, and so on.  This whole process though has again made me describe my interests and how I started along the professional path I love.  I may be walking two paths, one wider than the other, but my microbiology path has been there since 1995. I have long had an interest in biology.  At first, I thought I would be a botanist, or maybe a horticulturist, and I completed a short vocational course in horticulture in 1994.  Upon focusing on my undergraduate Science degree, I had a vision to be zoologist, a z oology researcher.  I could see myself in the Australian desert, spending weeks at a time studying native animals in Central Australia.  Without much thought, this image or my professional just developed in my mind.  Then, in the second semester of 1995 at Deakin University, a took a second-year genetics subject.  This was my first, indirect, exposure to microbiology, through practical classes of the genetics of bacteria.  For some reason, somehow, I had an affinity with microbiology and especially bacteriology.  To this day, I don’t know what it is, or why, but I was just drawn to microbiology.  I had absolute clarity, and when I moved back to Townsville and took up studies at James Cook University, I knew I would major in microbiology and took as many microbiology subjects as I could.  Microbiology was taught through the Graduate School of Biomedical and Tropical Veterinary Sciences at the time, so I was taught by veterinarians, and learnt about veterinary diseases and pathology classes were using large domesticated animals.  I undertook many microbiology subjects, and I think the only one I didn’t have a go at was marine microbiology.  It was a great place to study microbiology.  Come my final undergraduate semester, the environmental microbiology subject was transitioning to food microbiology, with the arrival of a new member of academic staff.  I jumped in to food microbiology and while there was environmental content, on nutrient cycles and the like, the content was very heavily food focused.  Not only foodborne pathogens, to keep in line with the clinical teaching and research that was undertaken at the University, but also in food fermentations too.  I recall a sauerkraut practical, where we needed to monitor key parameters as the fermentation progressed.  Despite getting in to food microbiology, but favourite subject was Mechanisms of Infectious Diseases that semester, a follow-on subject from Clinical Microbiology in first semester.  This was my playground I felt, an area I loved and where I felt at home.  I wasn’t outstanding in any of these subjects, but was doing ok.  When final results were out, at the end of semester, for my final undergraduate semester, I was absolutely astonished when I only scored 50% for the infectious diseases subject – I was so close to failing the subject I loved so much.  I still don’t know how that happened, maybe there was less bacteriology in that subject, perhaps, but whatever the case, it happened.  At the same time, food microbiology was my best subject, certainly not great at 71%, but it was my best.  Therefore, I made the choice to follow food microbiology. For various reasons, I’ve had to narrow my food microbiology path at times over the years, but it is always there, and I can’t bring myself to step away and leave food microbiology.  No matter whether it is food quality and preservation, fermented foods and gut health or food safety, I do have a strong feeling with all of them, and have worked/researched in all these at different points in time over my career in food microbiology. Now, in the mid-2020s, I feel a career in food microbiology is just as relevant as to when I was developing my interest in it, perhaps more so now.  Some of the global challenges of our time can certainly be linked to elements of food microbiology, or their solutions can be based in food microbiology.  Antibiotic resistance, climate change and food security can all be linked to food microbiology in some way, then we have the great health and economic burden of foodborne disease too.  Food microbiology continues to influence and impact our lives in such profound ways, and will no doubt continue to do so.  So why do I love food microbiology?  Is it the food element? Is it because it is a central science that is critical to society?  Maybe it is just the pretty colours of microbiological media that I “grew up” with in the laboratory in the pre-molecular era.  I really don’t know how much love for microbiology and especially food microbiology started and what is keeping my passion.  Whatever the case, it is clear that the pull I have for food microbiology is too strong for me to abandon my love of and for bacteria!

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