The Power of Partnership

Seven years ago, Pablo Esteban Espinosa and Mauricio Letort formed Food Knowledge, a company dedicated to consulting and training in matters related to sanitation, safety, and quality. Espinosa is a former quality manager at a poultry processing plant and a Food Science graduate of Utah State University at Logan. Letort is a former operations manager at a dairy plant and a Food Technology graduate of Massey University (New Zealand).

They established Food Knowledge in order to target one of the principal challenges facing upper management in the food industry: discovering which programs are truly necessary and determining the order in which they should be implemented. The vision behind Food Knowledge involves supporting food plants by offering training and consulting and allowing technical knowledge to be applied to operational practices.

In 2002, Food Knowledge partnered with AIB International to offer public seminars. To date, open courses have taken place in Quito, Guayaquil, and Manta (Ecuador) and Bogotá (Colombia) with 76 companies participating.
This partnership led to the 2004 debut of a successful Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs) training program, with in-plant training provided by Food Knowledge and materials supplied by AIB International. This program was launched with the objective of providing training to plant employees — many who have received only basic levels of formal education — in the most effective manner possible. To achieve this objective, the program was configured in the following manner:  

• Training is divided into four-hour sessions, for a total of 20 hours of training.
• One session takes place per week.
• There is a maximum of 25 people per class.
• Each week, participants are tested on the material covered during the previous week, as well as over the AIB International Consolidated Standards (Chapters 1 and 2 are covered in the first week; there is no exam for Chapter 1). The exams are multiple choice and open book, or can involve presenting an exercise, for example:   
• Week 2: Students take an exam over Chapter 2 — “Pest Control”
• Week 3: Students take an exam over Chapter 3 — “Operational Methods and Personnel Practices”
• Week 4: Students write a complete Cleaning Procedure for a piece of equipment or work area
• Week 5: Students present a finding (whether in the form of a photograph or a description) and then answer the following questions: What is wrong? Why? What are the consequences? What part of the Consolidated Standards does this finding violate? What should be done to immediately correct the root problem?

Since implementing the program, AIB International and Food Knowledge have trained more than 1,500 people, generating a range of positive results: from bosses who can more readily communicate with their employees regarding technical issues, to subordinates who demand sustained improvements that will help avoid product adulterations and maintain food safety.

In the years ahead the fruitful partnership between AIB International and Food Knowledge will continue to grow, as the globalized market demands more and more that the production of food be supported by coherent and practical sanitary, safety, and quality systems.

To learn more about public seminars offered by Food Knowledge and AIB International in 2007, please visit AIB International’s Latin American Web site at https://americalatina.aibonline.org/fechas.html.  AIB