79826 - Professional Practical Training in Food Inspection, Control and Certification 1

Learning outcomes

The training in Inspection, Control and Certification of Food provides students with the tasks related to official controls that are carried out using appropriate control methods and techniques such as monitoring, surveillance, verification, audit, inspection, sampling and analysis and that are performed at any of the stages of production, processing and distribution of food of animals origin. Trainees will become familiar with clinical, anatomical-pathological, food hygiene and inspection knowledge in order to determine whether any food is fit or unfit for human consumption. The training will provide students with the principles and methods used to develop a preventive approach for controlling potential hazards for staying in compliance with regulatory requirements and to provide the food safety evaluation during the operations carried out from the early stages of primary production, during food processing and manufacturing to maketing, including import and export. The student will able to: communicate the behaviors and actions useful to avoid unnecessary suffering for slaughtered animals; plan and perform audit to control the application of hygienic procedures and control measures in plants or food companies; to assess which actions have to be applied in accordance with food safety regulation, to perform sampling plans, even for official controls, and to interpret the results of laboratory tests.

Course contents

The training consists in the theoretical and practical training; its purpose is to prepares tudents for an adequate assessment of processes of different food chains (meat, poultry, game, seafood and dairy products), for the identification of processing steps that are critical to render products safe (, and to learn the methods for an adequate food safety control. The internal training is focused on professional competences and activities applied by veterinarians dealing with food chains; for these reasons, the training is conducted mainly in slaughterhouse, in the didactic cheese factory and in the exercise-teaching rooms of the Department of Veterinary Medical Sciences where students, in work groups, will analyze different processing lines, will identify the potential hazards, will assess the severity and probability of occurrence, will identify the critical control points required to control the identified hazards and specify the critical limits that could assure that an operation is under control at a particular critical control point, will establish a monitoring system and the execution of corrective actions when critical limits are not met, and are able to properly handle a problem solving. In more details, these activities are: analysis of the production processes performed in the didactic cheese factory; design an HACCP plan for the observed cheese factory; handle a problem solving in terms of analysis and resolution of real safety and hygiene problems; inspection of poultry and game; analysis of processing steps at slaughter and meat inspection; definition and implementation of a plan of sampling and analysis for the assessment of carcasses microbial loads; evaluation of the freshness of fish products; analysis of a food poisoning case.

Students must bring their own white coat

Readings/Bibliography

The teaching materials, texts and relevant bibliography for the training are provided by teachers.

Teaching methods

Pratical training, problem solving training, work project.

Assessment methods

The evaluation of the training execution will be done by:

- Frequency evaluation: the frequency to at least 70% of the lessons is required (7 out of 10)

- Evaluation of work trainers groups: several exercises and activities will be given to students under the guidance of the teacher in accordance with the principles of research based learning; these activities will be subject to an evaluation that will contribute to the evaluation of the final examination  of the Course of Inspection, Control and Certification of Food  (Referee Prof. Trevsani).

Teaching tools

The training will be performed mainly in the slaughterhouse and in the cheese factory of the Department; t he teaching materials, texts and relevant bibliography for the training are provided by Teachers.

Links to further information

http://corsi.unibo.it/MagistraleCU/MedicinaVeterinaria/Pagine/tirocinio-ispezione-controllo-e-certificazione-degli-alimenti-di-origine-animale.aspx

Office hours

See the website of Andrea Serraino

See the website of Teresa Gazzotti

See the website of Federica Giacometti

See the website of Alessandra Canever

See the website of Valentina Tepedino