FoodStream Provides Thermal Process Training for Fish Canning in the Pacific

In November 2013, FoodStream was contracted by the Secretariat of Pacific Communities to provide training to key cannery staff and regulatory personnel from the Pacific region.  The training was presented primarily by FoodStream thermal processing specialist Gordon Young, and carried out at the Secretariat’s facilities in Suva, Fiji, over a two week period.

The first week was a “Retort Supervisor’s Course”, but was extended to include “Can Seam Analysis” training, presented by Ross Millewski.  It was attended by 20 people,  from three Fijian canneries and one Solomon Islands cannery, and from the Ministries of Health in both countries.

The second week covered “Thermal Process Design” – equivalent to the “Approved Persons” course run in Australia. The group was joined by six people from Papua New Guinea for the second week (from two separate PNG canneries and the National Seafood Authority).  These six had attended Retort Supervisor’s Courses run by FoodStream in PNG in previous years.

The response to the course was excellent.  Some unsolicited testimonials received following the training are listed below.

FoodStream is working towards having an “Approved Persons” course available in Australia in coming months.  Don’t forget our Retort Supervisor’s Course and Retort Processing: Quality Optimisation & Recent Developments seminar in March.

 Some testimonials received:

I appreciated the course very much, especially the calculation part of it as I now understand how the software does the calculation for me. It was the kind of course I was expecting. This course really shook my brains out. This course sort of made things more clearer and your way of presentation just makes the hardest concepts simple to understand. Although I thought we kind of needed more time on the calculation, but I’ve made my mind to go through the course materials slowly and do all the calculations and exercises again to be more familiar with the formulae so all is fine.

Berry Matua, PNG

… it was really good time & knowledge you passed on was invaluable & I personally cleared lot of gray areas which I had in this industry. Such as, why we are cooking at one temperature while some one else is cooking at a different temperature, how to determine how long to cook, why we need to cook different times for different type of fish ect ect. Simply it makes me to have a good sound knowledge on this industry. Really thankful for passing on critical knowledge in a such a simple way.. you are very good in lecturing.

Saman Amarasinghe, Fiji

I am indeed so happy to see my results because I know that this is a tough course. Many thanks to you for being such a wonderful lecturer. Hope to meet you in future trainings.

Saurara Gonelevu, Fiji

You know I was telling my colleagues I only wish you were my physics teacher back in high school…lol. You were so clear & make us understand the calculations. Yes indeed the training was very very useful and now am confident and competent in assessing food canning plants. I am just looking forward to any future training with your company and will be promoting your company to any canning factory that needs their retort to be validated or processing schedules to be done.

Taina Rauvala, Fiji

Thank You for being such a excellent teacher. It was a wonderful experience for me and my colleagues we did enjoy every moment of our stay and to participate in the class. Yes, definitely the training was very useful and will be put to good practice. Wish to meet you in future again someday.

Ashok Raj, Levuka, Fiji

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