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Loyalist College First to Offer Food Processing Operator Apprenticeship	Date:	December 5, 2007
Loyalist College Offers Ontario’s First Food Processing Operator Apprenticeship Food processors in Eastern Ontario now have a not-so-secret weapon to help train their employees thanks to the corporate training division of a local community college. Loyalist College in Belleville has just launched the province’s first Food Processing Operator Apprenticeship training program. “This makes Ontario a better place to invest,” said Chuck O’Malley, a corporate account manager for the Loyalist Training and Development Centre. The Ontario Ministry of Training Colleges and Universities picked the centre to develop and deliver the program, which will eventually be rolled out to other institutions in the province, O’Malley said. The new apprenticeship program is providing standardized in-class training for food processing apprentices. The special training is important because the modern food process operator has to have a variety of skills, said O’Malley. “The new high-speed processor does it all,” he said. “They run the equipment, they fix the equipment, they do quality checks. They do everything.” The first 80 hour module of the program focused on quality, food safety and security has been completed by 32 Kellogg Canada employees. Other proposed modules include electrical, mechanical, automation, computer, safety management, environmental and continuous improvement skills totaling 300 hours of in-school learning. Mike McDermott, another account manager at the centre, said the program allows organizations to focus on other fronts while the centre takes care of the in-class training required to train food processing operators. “If you are a company and you have to develop all this yourself it takes time away from other current roles,” McDermott said. Manager of Economic Development for the Quinte Economic Development Commission, Chris King, said there are tax benefits available to food processing companies who take advantage of this training. “Local food companies can take full advantage of the benefits of the apprenticeship program, including tax credits and the provincial funding of training without having to travel to other jurisdictions to receive the training,” King said. The Quinte Economic Development Commission is one of six Ontario East communities that have partnered in the Food Processing Sector Investment Attraction Initiative. For more information: Loyalist Training and Development Centre - www.loyalisttraining.com