Food safety training for kitchens, care homes and food businesses

Several states require food employees to hold a food handler card from a program accredited through ANSI or a state agency. California requires one within 30 days of hire, valid for three years; Texas within 30 days of employment, from a program accredited by the state health department or ANSI; and Illinois within 30 days of employment, renewed every three years.

Our food handler course is not one of those accredited programs, and it does not issue a state food handler card or a certified food protection manager credential. It teaches the same core practices for staff whose employer or jurisdiction does not require a card, for refresher training and for onboarding before a card exam. Check your state and local health department before you choose.

The FDA Food Code is a model that states and local agencies adopt into their own rules; it is not federal law on its own. FDA publishes it on a four-year cycle and released the 2026 edition on September 30, 2026. Changes in the summary include:

• Written documentation of the employee illness policy (2-501.11) and a procedure for cleaning up vomiting and diarrheal events (2-502.11)
• Food defense added to what the person in charge must know, and food defense training for employees (2-103.11(R))
• No jewelry on arms and hands while preparing food, except a plain band ring and medically necessary devices
• Covered waste receptacles in all toilet rooms (5-501.17)
• A Major Food Allergen Framework in Annex 2

States adopt editions at different times. FDA’s adoption report lists, for example, the 2009 edition in Michigan, 2013 in Massachusetts, 2017 in Virginia and 2022 in Illinois, so always follow the code your inspector enforces.

These are Food Code values as written into state rules such as Minnesota’s and Texas’s; your state’s code may differ. The Food Cooling Log Generator prints a log for the two-stage cooling check.

Federal law names nine major food allergens: milk, egg, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, wheat, peanuts, soybeans and sesame. Sesame became the ninth on January 1, 2023 under the FASTER Act. Packaged food labels must name the allergen in the ingredient list or in a “Contains” statement, including the specific type of tree nut, fish or shellfish.

Some states go further for restaurants:

• Illinois: certified food protection managers in many restaurants complete accredited allergen awareness training within 30 days of employment and every 3 years.
• Massachusetts: a staff-area allergen poster, a menu notice asking guests to tell the server about allergies, and allergen awareness training for the person in charge, valid five years.
• Rhode Island: an approved staff poster, a menu notice and a manager knowledgeable about food allergies.

Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points is a way of finding the steps where a hazard must be controlled and proving it is. HACCP training is split by role: employees learn to monitor a critical control point, record it and act when a limit is missed; managers and team members learn to build and verify the plan itself, with worksheets for each of the seven principles.

Foodborne illness is common enough to justify the paperwork. The CDC estimates 48 million illnesses, 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths from foodborne disease in the United States each year.