Cleaning and disinfection of facilities, equipment and all elements involved in the food production process is a key factor to ensurefood quality and safety. Cleaning activities play an important role not only in the economic life of Europe where 160,000 cleaning contractors employ close to 4million employees, but also in the cultural and political life.
Over the last years, the industrial cleaning has become increasingly important within the Food and Drink (F&D) processing, a sector that in 2012 represented 14,9% of manufacturing production and was made up of 99,1% of SMEs in the 27EU (Food Drink Europa_ 2013), where the Italian food industry ranks 3rd in terms of volume of production followed by Spain, in 5th position. In other countries of the partnership F&D production is also very important, e.g. in Iceland about 20% of the workforce is employed within the F&D industry.
In any food manufacturing and processing environment, every cleaning situation presents a different challenge which requires specialist cleaners and hygiene management with food handling experience. Furthermore, both sectors, cleaning and F&D industry are very dynamic, and they are constantly incorporating new methods and modern technologies required by the openness of a strong international competition. Cleaners may be handlers as well, but every time, to accommodate a growing population and economy, there are more and more F&D facilities in which an industrial cleaning company performs the Cleaning and Disinfection (C&D) processes helping these businesses to hit their production targets whilst meeting strict health and safety and food hygiene regulations. Hence, the need of vocational training of workers carrying out C&D procedures in the F&D industry. Those workers are characterized by their low educational level, without qualification and who do not receive initial training specific to the job performance. In addition, the staff turnover is generally high, caused by a high level of temporary work and short fixed-term contracts.That is why the proposed training product will try to overcome all these difficulties and create materials and programmes aimed at trainers of workers who carry out cleaning activities in F&D industries regarding C&D procedures, adequate good hygiene practices and prevention of occupational risks by becoming familiar with New Information and Com-
munication Technology (NICTs), which are considered as critical for improving the competitiveness of European industry and, more generally, to meet the demands of society and the economy.
The general objective is improving quality and efficiency of the teaching-learning processes by means of design and validation of training materials based on new technologies and fully adapted to cleaners in the food and beverage industry.
The aim of the Project is to transfer training materials that were developed in the framework of the project "Cleaning of buildings and facilities’ as well as experience obtained in developing educational materials and adapting that material to the cleaning sector that performs activities in the food and beverage industry including specific procedures.
The general objective is improving quality and efficiency of the teaching-learning processes by means of design and validation of training materials based on new technologies and fully adapted to cleaners in the food and beverage industry.