Food Safety

The State of Hawaii, Department of Health changed its regulation for the food safety and as of September 2018, a new mandate for Food Handlers Education certificate requires at least one employee present at every food establishment during normal hours to have a formal food handlers training level certification.   

Of course we are not a restaurant but because we do have Bon Dance to prepare/provide food at the temple kitchen, our temple 

President made arrangement for me and himself to take a free 2.5 hour certification class on safe food handler’s class last Wednesday.  Before going to this class, I was a little nervous to take a test which requires 70% to pass.  But at the beginning of the class, I was so relieved to hear what our instructor said.   You can retake test two more times if you didn’t pass the test!

The class was actually very interesting with lots of important facts and knowledge on safety of the food, virus, pests, and the appropriate way to prepare, handle and store food.  At first, I was trying to take memo for everything which was projected on the screen.  But soon I gave up writing all.  Instead I started taking photos of the slides projected on the screen.

There were exactly 40 multiple-choices questions and no time limit for the test.  Questions were easy, but I took more time to make it sure for the correct answers.  Because I passed the test, I should not have complaints but for the future better education, I think to check answers at the site right after the test, will be more beneficial and useful to know what was wrong. 

Needless to say, improvement is always possible if you can notice you made a mistake and without realizing your mistake, it hardly gets better.   In fact, I had two questions that I was not sure the answers and I thought it would be nice to have time to get the right answers at the site, rather than just to know “pass or not pass.” 

The certificate I got will be good for three years and will meet the 2017 requirement** of the Hawaii Administrate Rules, Chaper 11-50 Food Safety Code.  Also I'm glad my card is good not only at Koloa Jodo but also at another facility such as Kapaa Jodo Mission.  

* 11-50-20(c) Food Protection Certification

(1) The person-in-charge shall demonstrate knowledge of basic food safety by successfully completing a food safety course that is part of a department food safety program or other program approved by the department.