Food Service Worker students apply their skills at Cobourg catered lunch
Food Service Worker students wrapped their six-week program in the kitchen of Fellowship Baptist Church. The Cobourg Campus students made a full catered lunch for Cobourg LINC students as their culminating project, applying all of the skills they learned throughout the program.
The Food Service Worker program at Fleming College is specialized training in the food service industry, and fulfils the training requirements for dietary aids working in health care facilities as established by the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Community & Social Services. This certificate is offered full-time in class or part-time online.
“This is the best way to learn this course, in my opinion,” said chef and instructor Mark Bellamy about the in-class learning option, which features site-seeing field trips to prepare for the industry. “This is six intense weeks to get the taste of responsibility and food safety when bulk cooking.”
For their final culminating activity, the 12 students were required to cater a lunch for 30 people at Fellowship Baptist Church in Cobourg, Ont. The budget was $180 and they had to create a menu featuring three breads, three salads, three starches, and three proteins. The students did all of the planning, costing, factoring of nutritional and dietary restrictions, cooking and serving.
“I think we’ve gone from little baby steps to something intense like this. I’ve never had to do food service for so many people before,” said student Mary Sears. “I think everyone is just kind of breaking the barriers down and getting used to it, and just getting your hands dirty, which is really nice to do.”
Food Service Workers enjoy the camaraderie of working hands-on in a busy team environment and the responsibility of looking after the nutritional welfare of their clients. This is specialized training in the food service industry and wages are usually higher than in mainstream food service establishments.