ANSI Food Handler

FMI's SafeMark Quick Reference: Food Safety for Food Handlers course is designed for food employees working in retail food establishments who work with unpackaged food, food equipment or utensils, or food-contact surfaces. This course will help food employees understand the why, what, and how to prevent food contamination in the food establishment.   There are no special requirements or prerequisites for participation in this course.

• The course will cover the following elements of knowledge:
• Foodborne illness, including food allergies
• The relationship between time and temperature with respect to foodborne illness
• The relationship between personal hygiene and food safety
• Methods of preventing food contamination in all stages of food handling
• Procedures for cleaning and sanitizing equipment and utensils
• Problems and potential solutions associated with temperature control, preventing cross-contamination, housekeeping, and maintenance

Upon completing the course, you will be able to identify:

• What is foodborne illness and how to prevent it.
• What are hazards to food safety and how they can be avoided
• Proper personal hygiene practices
• Proper food handling practices
• How to take the temperature of food and proper temperatures of food including avoiding the temperature danger zone, cooling, thawing, reheating, cold holding, and hot holding.
• How cross contamination can occur and how it can be avoided.
• How to properly store food including the different types of food such as TCS foods and ready-to eat foods
• What a food allergen is.
• How to properly clean and sanitize equipment, utensils, and other food contact surfaces, including when to clean, mechanical/manual warewashing.

In order to successfully complete the course and earn a certificate of training for FMI's SafeMark® Quick Reference:  Food Safety for Food Handlers course you must complete all four course lessons (Lesson 1: Foodborne Illness and Personal Hygiene; Lesson 2: Time and Temperature Awareness; Lesson 3: Preventing Cross Contamination; Lesson 4: Cleaning, Sanitation, and Safety) and participate in the associated learning activities.  In addition, you must pass the end-of-course assessment by achieving a score of 65% or higher. A score of 65% can be achieved by answering 20 questions correctly out of the 31 question end-of-course assessment. 

FMI will issue a certificate of training to individuals meeting the program requirements for successfully completing the course, including passing the course assessment. The certificate will be valid for 3 years from the date of course completion. The certificate of training is not a professional certification or licensing program. As such, you are a certificate holder; you are not certified or licensed. Please note that requirements for food handler training, including the certificate term of validity, may vary from one jurisdiction to another. You are responsible for complying with any food handler training regulations in your locale; therefore, you should contact your local jurisdiction’s office to obtain information regarding food handler training requirements.

Please submit any feedback that you have (e.g., feedback about Certificate Program, Course Materials, etc.) to the SafeMark Program Manager.

For the feedback, complaints, and appeals section it says to contact the SafeMark Program Manager. On the information sheet that I provided you, the contact information (copied below) was provided at the end of the sheet. Do you have any suggestion for how we can include this so it can be easily found but so we don’t have to include it in every section?

SafeMark Program Manager Contact Information

The SafeMark Program Manager may be contacted through mail, email or fax.  The mailing address, email address, and fax number are provided below:

FMI
Attn:  Gwen Lee
2345 Crystal Dr., Suite 800
Arlington, VA 22202
foodsafetyteam@fmi.org
Fax: (202) 220-0876

Appeals

An appeal must be made in writing either by letter, email or fax to the SafeMark Program Manager within thirty (30) days of receiving the determination being appealed.  The written appeal must include the stated appeal, the reason for the appeal (including relevant rule and supporting materials), and your contact information. 

Complaints

If you have any concerns regarding the assessments, personnel, or other elements of the certificate program you are encouraged to discuss these with the approved course instructor.  You may file a formal complaint in writing to the FMI SafeMark Program Manager within ninety (90) days of the incident’s occurrence. In the case of complaints related to a course or assessment administration, those must be submitted in writing within 2 weeks after the applicable course/assessment administration. The submission may be mailed, e-mailed or faxed. The submission shall include sufficient objective evidence to substantiate the claims and allow for a decision to be made and the appropriate action to be taken.