Spirit of Excellence Awards - BC Food & Beverage Conference,    January 26th, 2004

Evelyn Braunschmidt has been nominated for a Spirit of Excellence Award in the Management category by Coast Hotels. The award  recognizes an individual who has demonstrates foodservice industry leadership, professional leadership, sets standards of excellence, and has made contributions to the advancement of the industry.

Braunschmidt has taught Coast Hotels Employees on Vancouver Island FOODSAFE Level 1 & 2, as well as WHMIS. She has worked on a food safety plan with Food and Beverage Staff at the Coast Harbourside in Victoria. The nomination outlines her high level knowledge, passion for teaching, and professional approach, while citing her numerous other community contributions.

"What an honour to be nominated. Working in the hospitality industry is a real joy -- this adds to it," said Braunschmidt.

The awards will be presented at the 9th Annual BC Food & Beverage Conference FAB 2004, January 26th 2004, at the Sutton Place Hotel in Vancouver.

Victoria Trainers Make Safety Simple  by Jason McRobbie

Devising a Food Safety Plan that is both effective and easy to communicate is essential to the success of any restaurant operation.  Effectively managing food costs is equally important to the bottom line. While accidents do unfortunately occur, the old adage about an ounce of prevention has stood the test of time with due cause. 

A pair of new products, developed by the Victoria-based Hospitality Training Plus Inc., are aimed at helping operator’s meet the grade regarding the Ministry of health’s now-mandatory hygiene standards and allowing them to perform food audits with ease. 

“The ‘Food Operation Checklist’ and ‘Create Your Own Safety Plan’ compliment one another but are separate entities,” said HTP owner Evelyn Braunschmidt. “The reason these were created - my clients asked for a tool to help them cut down on time and something to simplify writing a Food Safety Plan.”

Developed by Braunschmidt and her daughter Astrid, “Create Your Food Safety Plan” is a CD package which includes an easy-to-follow, 45-minute tutorial on how to write a food safety plan. Incorporating HACCP principles, it explains sometimes confusing terms and guides the operator through the plan to monitor the food process.

“We spent six months developing the product and our end goal was to create something that would make sense to everyone in the industry.  Ease of use and simple communication was everything in the final product,” said Braunschmidt. “We use a couple of basic recipes as examples and fill in the paperwork on screen as though we were the food operator. People learn in different ways, so a written explanation appears on the screen during the tutorial is accompanied by a

voiceover throughout the whole presentation.” 

In addition, there are some printed language translations available on request for the multitude of operators for whom English is not their first language. Also on the CD is a wide range of forms which can be printed up and filled in as the business needs them, or their plan can be kept on a disk. There are also reference lists of specific information that the operator needs to build the plan.

The other CD, "Food Operation Checklist", is a printable document/checklist that helps an operator to audit each department of a food establishment.

For example, this audit is departmentalized and can be utilized by a grocery store, a bar, a restaurant or a hotel with banquet facilities. The purpose of the audit is to help the operator standardize the procedures at work and help a supervisor monitor the staff, maintain team work and meet building and machinery standards.

Hospitality Training Plus, Inc. started up in 1993 and currently offers Foodsafe Level 1 & 2, WHMIS, Serving It Right, Customer Service, Telephone Techniques, and HACCP consulting. 

Published September 2001 Issue, BC Restaurant News