The University of Delaware will host a one-day seafood training session on March 31, 2005, from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., at the College of Marine Studies in Lewes, Delaware. The training session will cover Segment Two of the National Seafood HACCP Alliance Training Course and will only be offered to those people who have a certificate showing that they have completed Segment One.
The two-segment HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) course teaches participants how to identify potential food safety hazards associated with their operation and apply science-based controls to prevent these hazards from occurring. The course provides all the training needed to satisfy the seafood processing safety regulations that are required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as well as state health departments.
Regulations for the seafood industry became mandatory in December 1997 and require all seafood processors and wholesalers in the United States as well as those countries that export seafood products to the United States to integrate HACCP (pronounced “has-sip”) principles into their operating procedures.
Segment One is offered through the Internet (see http://seafoodhaccp.cornell.edu) and was developed by the National Seafood HACCP Alliance for Training and Education with support from New York Sea Grant and Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. People who have completed Segment One training on the Internet are then eligible to register for the Segment Two portion of the course.
The Segment Two sessions are taught by trained instructors. The instructors for the one-day session to be held on March 31 at the College of Marine Studies in Lewes are Erin Butler, seafood specialist and shellfish standardization officer with the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in Baltimore; Doris Hicks, seafood technology specialist with the University of Delaware Sea Grant College Program in Lewes; and Thomas Rippen, seafood technology specialist with the Maryland Sea Grant Extension Program at the University of Maryland in Princess Anne.
As supervisory instructor, Hicks has been certified by both the National Seafood HACCP Alliance, a group of federal and state food inspection officials, university food science educators, and seafood industry representatives, and the Association of Food and Drug Officials, a professional organization that fosters uniformity in the adoption and enforcement of food, drug, medical devices, cosmetics and product safety laws, rules, and regulations.
The training session costs $55 per person, and advanced registration is recommended. To register or for more information, contact Doris Hicks at (302) 645-4346 or by e-mail at dhicks@udel.edu, or visit www.ocean.udel.edu/getinvolved. It will be held in Room 104 of Cannon Lab at the Hugh R. Sharp Campus in Lewes. The campus, located at 700 Pilottown Road in Lewes, is accessible to people with disabilities.