Head cooks and kitchen supervisors in restaurants
They carry the day-to-day responsibility for cooling, reheating and storing bulk-cooked food, and are the people an inspector asks first.
Course snapshot
CourseFood Safety for Catering Training
DurationHalf Day
Validity2 years
CourseFood Safety for Catering
LengthHalf a day
CertificateiMost, valid 2 years
FeeAsk our team for the current fee
Kozhikode to campusAbout 177 km
AssessmentWritten, demonstration, oral
What a Kozhikode kitchen is asked to show
Food in Kozhikode is a public business. Restaurants and sweetmeat shops cluster around Mittai Theruvu, caterers cook for large weddings and functions, hospital and college canteens serve large numbers of people every day, and the railway station is another place where food is sold to travellers. The station was reported in June 2023 to have received an Eat Right Station certificate from FSSAI, a reminder that the places where large numbers of strangers eat are the ones inspected and audited most visibly.
Three documents get confused here, so it helps to separate them. A Kerala health card, required of food handlers across the state since early 2023, is issued after a medical examination by a registered practitioner and shows that a worker is free of contagious disease and has the required vaccinations. An FSSAI licence is issued to the business and carries conditions. Training evidence is what shows that people know what to do at the stove and the pass, and that is the gap this half-day course fills. It does not stand in for the health card, and it does not stand in for FSSAI's supervisor certification where your licence calls for it.
That last point is worth a sentence of honesty. FSSAI's own scheme, FoSTaC, is delivered through authorised providers, and one provider describes its basic catering course as lasting about four hours. Ours is a different product from a different provider, assessed by a written test, a demonstration and oral questions. Kitchen owners usually buy it for what it teaches the rest of the team: the cook who is not a supervisor, the new hire in his first week, the steward who handles ready-to-eat food. Ask your licensing authority what it expects before deciding between the two.
Mittai Theruvu (Sweet Meat Street)
The commercial street in the old city, where restaurants and traditional sweetmeat shops sit side by side.
Kozhikode Railway Station
Reported in June 2023 to have received an FSSAI Eat Right Station certificate for food storage and hygiene.
Kerala health card rule
In force for the state's food handlers since April 2023; a separate requirement from training and from the FSSAI licence.
Who in Kozhikode benefits from Food Safety for Catering
Wedding and banquet catering crews
Food is cooked in quantity, often far from the base kitchen, and held for hours. Temperature control and cross-contamination are the main risks.
Canteen and mess staff at colleges, hospitals and offices
Institutional kitchens serve many people from one batch, so a single lapse reaches a large number of diners.
Bakery and sweet-shop production staff
Hygiene, cleaning and allergen handling matter in a small production space where raw and finished products share surfaces.
New kitchen hires and front-of-house staff handling ready-to-eat food
A half-day course gives a business a consistent first-week induction and a date on which it was completed.
Food Safety, HACCP, First Aid or FSSAI's FoSTaC
Choose Food Safety for Catering when the goal is to give a whole kitchen team a common baseline in hygiene, contamination control and temperature. Choose HACCP when one person needs to write and maintain a hazard-control plan. Choose First Aid when the gap is response to cuts, burns and collapse in the workplace. If your licence asks for a certified food safety supervisor under FSSAI's scheme, that is a separate training from an authorised provider, not one of these.
HACCP Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points Training →
A manager or quality lead must build a written hazard plan for a central kitchen, a production unit or a large caterer.
Basic First Aid Training →
Kitchen staff work with knives, hot oil and steam, and you want a trained responder on each shift. Half a day, ₹10,000.
The six modules, applied to a Kozhikode kitchen
The course combines classroom teaching with demonstrations, case studies and scenario exercises, and ends with a written test, a demonstration and oral questions. The examples below show how we suggest applying each module to the food cooked in a Malabar kitchen.
- 01
Introduction to food safety and legislation
Foodborne illness, the key terms (contamination, cross-contamination, pathogen) and the responsibilities of food businesses. This is the module that explains why a licence, a health card and a training record are three different things.
- 02
Food safety management systems
How a HACCP-based system works, how to monitor critical control points and what to record when something goes wrong. For a restaurant, the control points are often cooling rice or biryani, holding fish and reheating curries.
- 03
Personal hygiene standards
Hand washing, protective clothing and what to do when a food handler is unwell. It connects directly to the health card, which checks the worker once, while this module covers behaviour on every shift.
- 04
Cleaning, disinfection and waste
Cleaning agents, disinfection methods and waste segregation. Useful in a kitchen where fish, meat and vegetables are prepared on shared surfaces.
- 05
Contamination risks and controls
Microbiological, chemical and physical contamination, plus allergen risks. Raw seafood next to ready-to-eat items is the situation to think of.
- 06
Temperature control and monitoring
The danger zone for bacterial growth, safe thawing, cooking, cooling and reheating, and the correct use of a thermometer. Bulk cooking for functions makes this the module with the most daily impact.
For Kozhikode restaurant groups, caterers and institutional kitchens
Training is bought by restaurant owners and managers, catering firms, hotel groups, bakeries and the administrators of canteens in colleges and hospitals. Because a kitchen cannot close for a day, the practical approach is to send staff in groups on different days.
Standards that shape training in Kerala
FSSAI licence conditions and FoSTaCFood business licences carry hygiene conditions and, for larger operations, a requirement for trained food safety supervisors. Check your own licence for the wording.
Kerala health cardState requirement from April 2023 for food handlers, issued after a medical examination. It is separate from training certificates.
FSSAI Eat Right initiativeA voluntary programme under which places such as railway stations, campuses and markets are audited and certified for safe food.
What employers commonly ask for
| Course | Requirement note |
|---|---|
| Food Safety for Catering Training | Widely bought for kitchen and service staff as in-house evidence of training; it does not replace FSSAI's supervisor certificate. |
| HACCP Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points Training | For managers who maintain the written plan for a larger kitchen or production unit. |
| Basic First Aid Training | Useful where kitchens have burns and cuts risks; check what your insurer expects. |
Planning a group booking
- Register on https://portal.imostacademy.in/register. Approved companies can book groups and use rate-card pricing.
- The fee is not published; ask our team for the current rate and any group pricing before you plan the trip.
- Split a large kitchen into two or three groups so service never stops. Tell us your busy days and we will propose batches around them.
- Invoices to Indian businesses carry GST. Certificate dates for your whole team are tracked on the portal, which helps before a renewal falls due.
Operators and clients set their own requirements; confirm with your contract or HSE department.
Kozhikode to Njarakkal for a half-day course
Plan your visit around the course reporting time, including any same-day journey.
A half-day course does not need a hotel in principle, but the distance is 177 km each way. Most teams solve it by travelling the day before and sleeping near the campus, or by a minibus leaving before dawn.
Afternoon Jan Shatabdi 12075
Leaves Kozhikode at 13:45 and reaches Ernakulam Junction at 17:20, daily. Taking it the day before is the simplest way to be at the campus in the morning. Third-party timetables differ, so confirm on the railway enquiry service.
Why the morning Jan Shatabdi does not fit
12076 leaves Ernakulam Junction at 09:15 and arrives in Kozhikode at 13:00. That is too early for most course finishes, so look at afternoon and evening trains on the same line for the journey home.
Minibus or car
About 177 km, three hours or more in good traffic. A minibus from the kitchen suits a team of eight to twelve. Traffic around Thrissur and the Aroor stretch can add time.
How a Kozhikode team can plan the half day
- 1
Pick who goes first
Start with the head cook, the supervisors and two or three staff who handle the riskiest products. Cascade what they learn to the rest of the team afterwards.
- 2
Ask for the fee and a date
The fee is not published, so write to info@imostacademy.in or WhatsApp +91 8075 787307 with the headcount and a preferred month.
- 3
Travel the day before
Take the 13:45 train, arrive at 17:20 and sleep near the campus. This avoids a pre-dawn drive and a rushed first hour.
- 4
Attend the half day
Bring comfortable clothing for the practical demonstrations and a valid photo ID. Declare any medical condition or medication to the instructor.
- 5
Return and file the record
File the certificates with your health cards and licence papers. Note the two-year expiry so the next batch is booked in time.