Intercultural communication, food safety and environmental health practice: a professional development model

Dealing with different language and cultural groups in the food industry is becoming increasingly complex as new settler groups move into food businesses. This project involved the building and implementation of an intercultural communication professional development program for Environmental Health Officers (EHOs) in Victoria. The project highlighted that EHOs are faced with a number of challenges when implementing food safety legislation with culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) food businesses. This included working in a regulatory and educative role, balancing food safety requirements with realistic and achievable outcomes, and the need for more evidence-based knowledge about the safety of specific cultural foods and practices. Understanding the cultural traditions, customs and rituals was seen as a high priority to improve the engagement with CALD proprietors. The pedagogical approach adopted for the professional development program proved to be a successful model in enhancing EHOs' skills in this area. The project showed that a greater sharing of expertise, resources and collaboration on problem solving internally and externally in the local government environment would enhance EHOs' effectiveness. EHOs recommended that practical strategies for dealing with these issues should also be integrated into tertiary coursework in preparation for industry experience.