FP11 Missouri Culinary Skills Institute: Building Healthier Trays with Training

Abstract

Objective To increase the knowledge, skills and confidence of Missouri school nutrition professionals in an effort to increase student acceptance of school meals and improve their health status. Description The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services developed the Culinary Skills Institute (CSI) in response to training needs expressed by school food service staff on a 2012 Missouri Team Nutrition School Food Services - Training Needs Survey (TN). CSI is a two and a half day training that consists of classroom instruction, culinary demonstrations and hands-on culinary labs where students prepare kid-tested recipes. All classes are led by a culinary instructor and nutritionist. Trainings focus on: building team work skills, scratch cooking methods, layering flavor in dishes and an introduction to farm to school with small steps for implementation. There is no charge for the training and students receive a training manual, recipe book and culinary tools for use in class and to continue practices learned in their school kitchen. Evaluation Missouri TN collected participant class satisfaction and intention to implement techniques in their school kitchen using a post-training Likert-scale questionnaire and a series of open-ended questions. CSI students also complete a survey before attending training and again six to eight months after training. The survey gathers demographic data as well as participants' basic culinary skills knowledge, confidence regarding knife skills, fresh fruit and vegetable preparation skills and usage, and intention to increase fresh, whole fruits and vegetables in school meals. Conclusions and Implications CSI student feedback and enthusiasm reported on open-ended questions confirm the importance of hands-on training when teaching adults culinary skills. Graduates report confidence gained during CSI led them to develop training for staff and students after returning to their school kitchens. Over 80% of graduates report knife skills and new standardized recipes were the most useful parts of the training. Grant Year 2016