Food Technology for Non-Technical Professionals

Production talks about yield, OEE, CIP and changeovers. This course explains what that means for cost, risk and your customers.

Many of the most important decisions in a food business are made outside the factory: what to launch, what to buy, what shelf life to promise a retailer, which co-manufacturer to trust. Those decisions go better when the people making them understand how food is processed, packed and shipped, and where the real risks and costs sit.

Food Technology for Non-Technical Professionals is an 8-hour online course for commercial, marketing, procurement, finance, logistics and HR staff, investors, entrepreneurs and retail buyers. It needs no technical background. Every lesson ends with what the topic means for your role.

What the course covers

Six modules: how food is made, from goods-in to dispatch; processing methods such as pasteurisation, UHT, high pressure processing and freeze drying, and what they mean for claims; packaging, shelf life and the cold chain; getting a new product to market; manufacturing quality, safety and audits; and the technology trends shaping the industry.

Each module closes with a case study, a knowledge check and a game: handle a buyer who wants twelve more days of shelf life, take a product from napkin sketch to shelf, and respond to an audit report nobody wanted. Every lesson has a Listen to this lesson option. All activities, knowledge checks and games are compulsory and open in order.

The course ends with a capstone project and a proctored final assessment: 40 questions drawn at random, so every attempt is different. 60 minutes, 70 percent to pass, 3 attempts.

Your certificate

Pass the final assessment and you receive an ASC Food Safety Certificate of Achievement for Food Technology for Non-Technical Professionals. It shows your name, the course, the completion date and a unique verification ID with a QR code, so an employer or auditor can check it online at ascfoodsafetytraining.com. You can download it from your dashboard as soon as you pass.

The course was developed by ASC Food Safety’s multidisciplinary team of industry professionals, led by Mthokozisi Nkosi, with contributions from specialists in brewing, dairy processing, meat processing and nutrition. It follows international references: Codex Alimentarius, ISO 22000 and WHO and FAO guidance.