Graduate Certificate Programs in Food Science

Preparing the food industry future leaders through purpose-driven research, education and outreach.

Our research programs are designed to expand understanding of the biological microbiological, chemical, physical, sensory, nutritional and engineering properties of foods and beverages. Our extension and outreach programs transfer research-based information and technology to consumers, food and beverage companies, and government agencies with the goal of enhancing the availability, quality, and safety of our food .

We work together to provide new answers and discover new questions across the food science sectors.

Our research programs are designed to expand understanding of the biological microbiological, chemical, physical, sensory, nutritional and engineering properties of foods and beverages.

Two graduate students pointing to beakers as young students watch.

Our extension and outreach programs transfer research-based information and technology to consumers, food and beverage companies and government agencies with the goal of enhancing the availability, quality and safety of our food .

Cross-section of chicken intestine with cells that may be affected by food nanoparticles.

Food coloring, anti-caking nanoparticles may affect human gut.

May damage parts of the human intestine, say Cornell and Binghamton University scientists.

The USC Graduate Certificate in Food Safety requires satisfactory completion of 12 units beyond the baccalaureate degree. All of the courses offered by the Department of Regulatory and Quality Science can be taken either in-person or online (within the United States). Upon admission we will work with you to develop a course plan that fits your needs.

CDPH Food and Drug Branch (main page) CDPH�Food Safety Program Cannery Inspection and Licensing Program Cottage Food Operations Processed Food Registrations Food Certificates, Licenses, and Registrations�.

CDPH�Food Safety Program Cannery Inspection and Licensing Program Cottage Food Operations Processed Food Registrations.

Regulations for Processing Food Bioterrorism Act Food Labeling FSMA for Food Processors HACCP Regulations Federal Regulations State (California).

By focusing on the cultural significance, history and social meanings of food, this certificate allows students to develop a dynamic framework for understanding the place of food in societies from a variety of perspectives.

Food, Culture and Society Certificate Curriculum Sheet75.65 KB.

Properly grow, harvest and handle your produce, learn produce safety regulations required under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), develop a food safety plan for third party audits, and follow good agricultural practices.

From the Ground Up: Produce Safety for New and Beginning Farmers.

Our new on-farm produce safety education program to empower beginning growers in New Jersey.

Educational outreach focusing on good agricultural practices, third party audits and the Food Safety Modernization Act.

Farm Food Safety Certificate Trainings Registration is Required!

View our collection of On-Farm Food Safety Publications subscriptions are available via EMAIL and RSS.

Dr. Wes Kline, On-Farm Food Safety CoordinatorMeredith Melendez, Mercer County Agricultural Agent.

Sign Up for Our Email List to Stay Up-To-Date with On-Farm Food Safety Information!

The Animal Science at Texas A M University offers a Graduate Certificate in Food Safety. The certificate is designed for graduate students interested in food microbiology, HACCP, sanitation, regulatory affairs, and quality control or assurance.

This program is available to graduate students pursuing any graduate degree at Texas A M University. Upon completion, students will be prepared to meet the demands of careers in the area of food safety, and formal documentation of completing this program will be placed on the student’s transcript.

To declare a Graduate Certificate in Food Safety contact the departmental graduate advisor.

The PDF will include all pages within the Graduate and Professional Catalog.

Graduate Certificate in Food Safety at Michigan State University is designed for mid-career/mid-management working professionals who are not seeking a degree. The program consists of four 3-credit courses to equal a 12-credit hour program which is offered 100% online. The average time to complete certificate is 4 semesters or 16 months.

Protecting the human food from accidental or deliberate contamination of pathogenic microbes and toxicants.

The Food Safety Defense online graduate certificate program is an inter-institutional certificate program offered as part of the Great Plains Interactive Distance Education Alliance (GPIDEA AG IDEA), in cooperation with Iowa State University, Kansas State University, and the University of Missouri.

This online certificate can complement a graduate degree program or allow food industry professionals to advance their careers while working full-time to pursue in-depth specialized training. Core courses include Food Microbiology, Food Safety and Security, HACCP, and Food Toxicology as well as two additional elective courses.

Applicants must also fulfill any additional requirements the department specifies at the time of application.

Certificate programs are not considered degree programs, additionally, coursework for this program is delivered primarily online, so international students should be aware that admission to this program is ineligible for immigration forms for an F-1 student visa.

Food Innovation Center1901 N.

The University of Nebraska does not discriminate based on race, color, ethnicity, national origin, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, and or political affiliation in its programs, activities, or employment.

Updates to graduate program pages are made on an annual basis in conjunction with the Graduate Application for Admission.

Food safety entails specific methods and procedures for the handling, preparation, and storage of food in ways that prevent foodborne illness. Food safety systems help to ensure the safety of your food products, protecting both your consumers and your business.

Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) is a specific food safety system that is a systematic science-based approach to the identification, evaluation, and control of food safety hazards. HACCP is neither a stand-alone nor reactive program. Rather HACCP is a preventative program designed to identify potential hazards associated with food, determining if they are likely to occur, and developing control measures that reduce or eliminate the identified hazards. The principles of HACCP are applicable across all aspects of food production from agriculture to processing to distribution.

The identification of potential hazards in products and processes and their likelihood to occur is known as Hazard Analysis. Your analysis should result the creation of a system of controls known as Critical Control Points (CCP). A common example of a common CCP in dairy processing is pasteurization as the appropriate heating and cooling of the raw milk eliminates most pathogens.

An essential part of the HACCP Plan is accurate flow diagrams for each process within your plant. A flow diagram is a general diagram that describes the process step-by-step. It should include all steps in the process, in sequence, directly under control of the facility from raw material receipt through processing, packaging, storage and distribution.

In order to begin creating a Food Safety HACCP Plan, one must first have an understanding of what are considered hazards. A food safety hazard is a biological, chemical, or physical agent that, if not properly controlled, can cause illness or injury to the individual who consumes the food.

There are four types of general food safety hazards: biological, chemical, physical, and radiological.

Biological hazards include bacterial, viral, and parasitic pathogens. A pathogen may be defined as a biological agent that causes disease or illness to its host.

Comprehensive guidance regarding biological hazards may be found on our Bacteriology Fact Sheet.

Allergens are one the most common chemical hazards as researchers estimate that nearly 15 million American suffer from a food allergy. Eight foods account for 90 percent of all reactions: milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, soy, wheat, fish and shellfish. Even trace amounts of a food allergen can cause a reaction.

Radiological Hazards: The FDA has prepared Guidance Levels for Radionuclides in Domestic and Imported Foods with the most current information.

Prior to developing your Food Safety Plan, it is necessary to complete five preliminary steps that provide the basis of you plan.

Team Members should be trained in Food Safety Systems HACCP.

Implement and maintain Food Safety HACCP plan and supporting programs.

Verify and validate Food Safety HACCP system as required.

The next step is to completely describe each food product that your facility produces. This should include a brief description of the process to help identify potential hazards.

Categories may include: Ready-to-Eat (RTE), to be heated prior to consumption, or further processing.

May be some common instructions.

Describe the normal expected use of the food.

A flow diagram is a general diagram that describes the process step-by-step. It should include all steps in the process, in sequence, directly under control of the facility from raw material receipt through processing, packaging, storage and distribution. (NACMCF 1997).

Prerequisite programs are steps or procedures, including GMPs and SSOPs, which control the operational conditions within a food establishment and promote environmental conditions that are favorable for the production of safe food. Prerequisite programs are the foundation of a Food Safety HACCP system. According to Appendix K of the PMO, prior to the implementation of a Food Safety HACCP plan, plants must develop, document, and implement written prerequisite programs.

Water, steam, and ice are used in every part of food processing from transport to cleaning and sanitizing to ingredient use. Factors that must be considered include:.

When using a municipal water source, the water treatment authority is responsible for the safety of the source as well as the means of conveyance to the facility.

When using private water systems (wells, etc.), a facility is directly responsible for the monitoring and documentation of the safety of their water source.

Many procedures must be monitored daily, while others may be monitored less frequently (such as preventative maintenance and training).

Contaminants such as bacteria are unable to move from one place to another on their own. Cross contamination occurs when food, water, air, people, or equipment carry these contaminants from one location to another. Many factors can contribute to cross contamination, but the most common causes include:.

It is imperative that in addition to clean food processing equipment, the facilities associated with production must be cleaned, stocked, and properly maintained.

A secured area with limited access and removed from food storage, processing, and packaging areas is an essential condition in this prerequisite program.

Keep Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) for proper handling.

Pests, such as rodents, birds, and insects, are excluded from relevant areas of the plant to the extent possible and should also confirm that approved procedures are followed to prevent and or eliminate infestation without contaminating foods or food processing equipment.

After completing the preliminary steps and establishing prerequisite programs, it is time to develop the Food Safety HACCP Plan. Plans are based on the seven basic principles.

The first step in creating a HACCP Plan is to conduct a Hazard Analysis which identifies all of the significant food safety hazards that are associated with the operations products and processes.

CCPs must be thoughtfully developed and closely monitored. Additionally, they must be used only for the purposes of product safety such as a specified heat treatment or refrigeration temperature. A tool to help determining whether a process is a CCP is the CCP Decision Tree:.

CCP Decision Tree Chart courtesy Seafood HACCP Training Course, Cornell University.

Identifying the appropriate step which contains the CCP is essential. In other cases, control measures could be applied at a particular step, but that step may not be the best place to control the hazard. Additionally, there may be different control options for a single hazard. Some additional items to keep in mind:.

A single CCP may be used to control than one hazard.

than one CCP may be needed to control a hazard.

A critical limit is a maximum and or minimum value to which a biological, chemical, or physical parameter must be controlled at a CCP to prevent, eliminate, or reduce the occurrence of a food safety hazard to an acceptable limit.

Each CCP must have one or critical limits. If the process deviates from the critical limit, a corrective action must be taken to ensure that your product is safe. This process separates acceptability from unacceptability and safe from unsafe conditions. Critical limits may be based on:.

Different critical limits may be needed differing types of hazards.

A critical limit must exist for each significant food safety hazard.

Non-continuous (intermittent periodic) Monitoring is required when a continuous monitoring is not possible. The frequency of non-continuous monitoring may be influenced by past history and knowledge of the product and processes. Examples include visual checks and sensory evaluations.

Determine if the product presents a safety hazard.

If no hazard exists based on evaluations in Step 1, the product may be released.

Determine the cause of a deviation and correct and test as needed. Determine of a change in the Food Safety plan is warranted.

Verification includes those activities, other than monitoring, that determine the validity of the Food Safety HACCP plan and verify that the system is operating according to the plan.

Focused on collecting and evaluating scientific and technical information to determine of the Food Safety HACCP plan will effectively control the hazards.

It is recommended that the system verification occur at a frequency that ensures that the Food Safety HACCP plan is being followed continuously.

The Food Safety HACCP team is responsible for ensuring that this verification activity is performed.

Situations that may trigger a plan reassessment include:.

Written records provide documentation of the Food Safety HACCP plan, and demonstrate that critical limits have been met, and appropriate corrective actions and verification procedures have been taken.

Cost per credit hour is an estimate based on maintenance and university fees. Some programs may have additional course fees.

The Public Health and the Food Science and Technology (College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources) jointly offer a graduate certificate in food safety to prepare public health and food industry leaders, researchers, educators, and practitioners to understand and apply knowledge and skills to enhance food safety and prevent food-related disease. The Center for Agriculture and Food Security and Preparedness, the Biomedical and Diagnostic Sciences, and the College of Veterinary Medicine are partners supporting this certificate. The certificate offering is coordinated through the Tennessee Integrated Food Safety Center of Excellence and is administratively housed in the Public Health. The Center of Excellence is supported by a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to the Tennessee Health.

Students can choose courses based on their previous experience and interests, including:.

Physical, chemical, and environmental factors moderating growth and survival of food born microorganisms. Pathogenic and spoilage microorganisms affecting quality of foods and their control.

See all online degrees and certificates available online at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Check out the services and resources all online students receive at UT.

Take a look at policies related to being an online student at UT.

Online Learning Academic Programs2441 Dunford Hall915 Volunteer Blvd., Knoxville, TN 37996.