Something Smart Cooking in Polytechnic ‘Kitchen'

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Something Smart Cooking in the Polytechnic ‘Kitchen’

Otago Polytechnic, in collaboration with Dunedin companies The Street and Straylight Studios, launched their high-tech interactive learning solution ‘The Kitchen’ last night to an excellent reception.

The Kitchen brings a commercial kitchen environment to life in vivid detail, creating a familiar context within which to educate food industry workers on good food handling practice.

Using The Kitchen, students may be assessed for the food safety Unit Standard 176. The Dunedin City Council, along with many other Councils in New Zealand, require that all food handlers operating in the Otago region are certified with the qualification.

The programme removes the need for classroom attendance and it is expected that food workers will find it easy to complete their qualification in their own time at one of the Polytechnic’s Community Learning Centres.

Otago Polytechnic Marketing and Business Development Manager Mike Waddell described the collaboration between the Polytechnic and its partners as an exciting example of how comparatively small specialists in Dunedin could work collaboratively to produce modern solutions both for New Zealanders and international clients.

The product had enormous scope to meet the needs of the hospitality and tourism industries whose reputation was very dependant on good food hygiene practices he said.

Waddell also acknowledged the huge amount of work put into the project by the Polytechnic’s School of Hospitality who will be the first to put the game into practice for the use of students.

DCC Environmental Health Manager Ros MacGill said that she had been ‘instantly impressed’ with a preview of the programme five weeks ago. It would alleviate the problem of getting hospitality workers to work their training around odd working hours she explained.

Nigel Kirkpatrick from The Street said the project was really exciting because of the global opportunities it presented. Already he had received several enquiries from ‘major global players’ asking when they could get their hands on it.

Straylight Studios describes the package as “an innovative leap in hygiene training providing a new platform for the education of good food safety practice and a cost sensitive training solution with more effective and applicable leaning outcomes.”

Plans to sell and distribute the product to a wider market are currently underway.

ENDS

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