The SQF Food Safety Code for Manufacture of Food Packaging can be a little overwhelming to not only understand but implement. If you are preparing for compliance, here is a guide focused solely on explaining its requirements for your training program to help you ace this part of your audit.

1 An Employee Training Program is Mandatory

A well-defined and clearly documented training program designed to meet SQF’s Food Packaging guidelines isn’t just a nice-to-have — it’s a requirement. Your training program should outline the specific duties for all employees involved in:

• Developing & applying Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs)

• Applying food regulatory requirements

• Hazard analysis or other tasks critical to food safety

• Tasks critical to implementing & maintaining the SQF system

SQF also requires all food packaging companies to maintain an updated food safety plan as outlined by HACCP. To that end, HACCP training must be provided for all employees who develop and maintain food safety plans.

2 Provide Multilingual Training Instructions

Because all employees do not speak the same language, all of your training cannot be in one language. To comply with SQF, all training instructions and critical tasks related to processes and/or regulations must be explained in the employee’s spoken language, whether it’s English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Mandarin, etc.

Guide: SQF Food Packaging Requirements for Training

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3 Include Refresher Training

According to the forgetting curve, 90% of training information is forgotten in less than 30 days. Therefore, companies need to identify and implement refresher training to ensure retention of training topics that are essential to safety, product quality, and productivity. It’s not only a training best practice, it’s another requirement for SQF compliance.

4 Maintain a Current Training Register

To comply with SQF, careful documentation must be maintained for training. SQF recommends keeping a detailed register describing each employee’s skills training information, including:

• Employee name

• Skills learned

• Description of the training provided

• Training completion date

• Trainer or training provider

• Supervisor’s verification the training was completed, and trainee is competent

Need help developing your training program or are you looking for SQF Compliance Consulting? Contact Alchemy today!