Community Food Skills Programs are in place in an effort to teach individuals in priority neighbourhoods how to cook nutritiously and safely for their families. The City of Toronto has come to realize that these learned skills are not only useful for the home, but could also be translated into the food industry workplace.
Wanting to maximize on these lessons and learned skills, while also assisting eager individuals seek employment, Toronto Public Health, Toronto’s Economic Development & Culture division, the Toronto District School Board, college representatives, Toronto Employment & Social Services, and the HR Counsel of Canada, all gathered to discuss a curriculum that could teach individuals these hands-on food skills and help them get jobs in the food and beverage industry. This collaboration planted the seed for what is now Toronto’s successful Entry to Food Processing program.
Short and efficient, the nine week program successfully completed comes with a Full-time Entry to Food Processing Certificate. The first five weeks are spent in class, and provide students with seven certifications from the HR Food Processing Sector Council in Ottawa, as well as Food Handling Certification, Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHIMIS) and CPR training. The final four weeks of the program consist of an unpaid work placement, giving participants the opportunity to practice and demonstrate the skills they have learned in the workplace. These placements not only give individuals the chance to prove their skills outside of the program, but they also bring skilled workers to local businesses who are in need of trained hands. The placements can also sometimes even lead directly to employment.
In the program, each student receives hands-on training with a Toronto Public Health Inspector, a Dietitian and a Program Instructor. The Toronto District School Board, in partnership with FoodShare Kitchen, also provided an intensive baking and commercial kitchen experience for all of the participants. After just nine weeks, there is no doubt that the participants come out well prepared.
The program evidently instills confidence in the students, and gets them well-prepared and trained for businesses that are searching for workers they can feel confident in. A mutually-beneficial relationship is created; the individual finds a place to work while the industry gains a trained worker. The students are fulfilling their goals while the industry is gaining skilled hands and enhancing their business.
Out of the 39 individuals that have completed the program, 28 have found permanent employment in the food processing sector. This high success rate tells us the program has already changed numerous lives.
And it’s not just the individuals reaping the benefits. In this brief video summary of the program, Michael Wolfson, City of Toronto Economic Development & Culture’s Food & Beverage Sector Specialist, explains that the cost to the city to put 39 people through the program was roughly $100,000, while it has returned to the city in saved social services costs and economic benefits over $1.2 million.
You know what they say, ‘you have to spend money to make money’; or in this case, to save it.
Wolfson further shares with us: “as an Economic Development Officer, the measurable goal of the program was to supply a trained workforce to a needed food processing sector. Jobs, jobs, jobs. The unmeasured benefit for me was to see the faces of individuals who were able to find employment after receiving Ontario Works and gain self confidence once they completed the course. It is changing lives.”
In 2013 the program won the City Manager’s Award for Cross Corporate Collaboration in Toronto. The Alliance, of course, is very excited to see such a beneficial and long-lasting collaboration and program in the City of Toronto, and hopes that these learnings can be passed along to other Alliance members.