Last reviewed 11 November 2026 against the sources linked in this post.
A food handler training course teaches cooks the basics of safe food, but a card is rarely all a kitchen needs. The CDC estimates that each year 48 million people get sick from a foodborne illness, 128,000 are hospitalised and 3,000 die. Kitchens also have burns, wet floors, heat and fire to deal with.
This is a list of 10 ready-made courses for kitchen managers, head chefs and restaurant operators. They sit around your required food handler card. None is a card course. Each group ends with an Our pick.
All 10 courses at a glance
| Course | What it covers | Length | Rule or guidance behind the topic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Food safety awareness for food workers | Hygiene, cross-contamination and temperatures | 40 min | FDA Food Code, a model for local rules |
| Food safety, HACCP and allergens | Hazards, critical control points and allergens, delivery to plate | 40 min | Check your local food authority |
| Food allergen awareness | The 9 major allergens and cross-contact | 30 min | Nine major allergens set by US law (FDA) |
| Heat illness prevention | Heat stress signs, water, rest and cooling | 30 min | OSHA heat guidance |
| Slips, trips & falls (walking-working surfaces) | Spills, footwear and walkways | 25 min | OSHA 29 CFR 1910.22 |
| Harassment prevention: employees (US federal) | What harassment is and how to report it | 45 min | Harassment can be unlawful (EEOC) |
| Respectful workplace & anti-bullying | Naming and answering everyday disrespect | 35 min | None cited here |
| De-escalation for customer-facing staff | Calming a complaint at the pass | 30 min | None cited here |
| Emergency action & fire prevention plans | Raising the alarm and getting out | 30 min | OSHA 29 CFR 1910.38 |
| Active shooter preparedness: Run, Hide, Fight | Choosing run, hide or fight | 30 min | None cited here |
Food safety, HACCP and allergens
Three courses for the people who touch the food.
Food safety awareness for food workers
Cooks handle raw and ready-to-eat food all day. This 40-minute course has six lessons: why it matters, clean hands, time and temperature, cross-contamination, your own kitchen and a 12-question final check. The FDA publishes the Food Code as a model that local, state, tribal and federal regulators use to develop or update their own food safety rules, and the course is based on it. Ask the room which jobs on a busy line are the riskiest for cross-contamination.
Food safety, HACCP and allergens: keeping food safe from delivery to plate
HACCP means finding where a hazard could enter and controlling that step. This 40-minute course follows a fictional kitchen, Alder Foods, on a Monday lunch service. It covers the danger zone, handwashing, spotting errors in cross-contamination, which step is critical and the records to keep, then allergen controls and labelling. Ask your team where in your own kitchen a delivery could go wrong before it reaches the walk-in.
Food allergen awareness
The FDA says the nine major food allergens identified by law in the US are milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans and sesame. This 30-minute course covers how an allergy differs from an intolerance, where allergens hide in menu items, how to stop cross-contact, how to take an allergen order and what to do when someone has a reaction. For a deeper list, see our guide to the 9 major food allergens. Ask: a guest says "no nuts", so what changes on your line?
Our pick: Food safety, HACCP and allergens. It is the one course that follows food from delivery to plate in a single story, so a new cook sees how each step links to the next.
Kitchen injury prevention
Hot, wet and fast: kitchens injure people as well as make them ill.
Heat illness prevention
OSHA says at a minimum all supervisors and workers should receive training about heat-related symptoms and first aid. This 30-minute course teaches who is at higher risk, including new and returning workers, the signs of heat rash, cramps, exhaustion and heat stroke, and the controls: water, rest, shade, cooling and acclimatisation. Ask your team when on a Saturday service the kitchen is hottest, and who steps out first.
Slips, trips & falls (walking-working surfaces)
OSHA's rule says the floor of each workroom is maintained in a clean and, to the extent feasible, in a dry condition. This 25-minute course has seven lessons covering slip, trip and fall hazards, housekeeping rules, safe walking habits and footwear, and reporting spills. Walk your own kitchen with it and mark every place a spill tends to happen.
Our pick: Slips, trips & falls. A greasy floor is a hazard in any kitchen, and the course covers safe walking habits, footwear and reporting spills.
Respect at work
Tense, loud kitchens need clear standards for how people treat each other.
Harassment prevention: employees (US federal)
The EEOC says harassment based on a protected characteristic, such as sex, race or age (40 or older), becomes unlawful where enduring the offensive conduct becomes a condition of continued employment, or where the conduct is severe or pervasive enough to create a work environment that a reasonable person would consider intimidating, hostile, or abusive. This 45-minute course teaches what harassment is, how to tell it from a policy breach, how to act as a bystander and how to report it. Ask the room to sort examples into unlawful harassment, a policy breach or acceptable behaviour.
Respectful workplace & anti-bullying
Kitchen banter can tip over into bullying. This 35-minute course separates bullying, incivility and tough-but-fair management from unlawful harassment, then gives simple scripts to respond, repair and intervene, and a way to raise a concern. It suits a head chef who wants to set the standard in the first week. Ask: what is the difference between a firm instruction and a put-down?
De-escalation for customer-facing staff
Cooks and expediters hear complaints at the pass. This 30-minute course teaches why aggression happens, the stages of escalation, verbal and non-verbal techniques, keeping a safe position and when to get help. It was written for retail staff, with counter, phone and floor examples, so adapt them to the kitchen door. Ask your team what they would say to a guest who storms in to the pass.
Our pick: Respectful workplace & anti-bullying. It gives a new cook words to use on day one.
Emergency planning
Gas, fryers and open flame make fire an emergency every kitchen should plan for.
Emergency action & fire prevention plans
OSHA's rule says an employer must review the emergency action plan with each employee when the plan is developed or the employee is first assigned to a job. This 30-minute course teaches how emergencies are reported, how to leave and where to meet, who stays behind, and how to prevent fires. The rule applies only where an OSHA standard requires a plan, so check with your safety lead. Walk your exits as a team, and ask who turns off the gas.
Active shooter preparedness: Run, Hide, Fight
Restaurants are open to the public, so staff should have thought about what they would do. This 30-minute course covers the warning signs, the order of Run, Hide, Fight, how to apply it to your own building and role and what to do when police arrive. No law is cited here, so treat it as good practice. In a kitchen, the practice lesson is a prompt to ask where the back door is.
Our pick: Emergency action & fire prevention plans. Fire is a real risk around gas, fryers and open flame, and every cook should know the way out before service starts.
How to roll the plan out
Start with your required food handler card and the courses tied to food safety and allergens, because the CDC figure above shows what is at stake. Then add the courses for the injuries and emergencies your kitchen sees most. Add respect courses to onboarding. Schedule annual refreshers and finish with role-specific depth, such as a walk of your own floors for the line.
Whether you need a card depends on where you are. The FDA's Food Code is only a model, so rules differ by place. Check with your health department. These templates are awareness courses, not an official card or certificate (the food safety awareness and food allergen templates say so on their pages), so use them as your own refresher and kitchen layer around it.
Anchor each session to the same fact: the CDC estimates 3,000 deaths and 128,000 hospitalisations a year from foodborne illness in the US. For another sector, see our 8 restaurant staff training courses for servers and bartenders.
Ways to run these courses on AhaSlides
You can offer all 10 in three formats:
- Self-paced courses. Use the AhaSlides course creator to send each new cook a course before their first solo shift.
- A live Q&A deck. Collect questions ahead of the session, then answer them in the room. For running it well, see our 9 tips for a successful Q&A session.
- Surveys. Use the post-course survey and 30-day check-in that come with each template, and see how to track employee training completion.
Four slide types do most of the work:
- Pick Answer. Ask: "A guest says no nuts. What changes on your line?" Show the split before you reveal the answer.
- Word Cloud. Ask: "What is the hardest moment on a Friday night service?" The biggest words show where the team needs practice.
- Rating Scale. Ask, before and after: "How confident are you about what to do if a guest has an allergic reaction?" Rate from 1 to 5 and compare the averages.
- Open Ended. Ask: "What would you say to a cook who is being shouted at?" Answers can be anonymous, so people say what they think.
FAQ
What training do food handlers need?
Requirements depend on your state or county. Where training is required, it usually covers hygiene, cross-contamination and temperature control, and allergen awareness is good practice either way. The FDA's Food Code is the model that many local rules follow, so check which edition your authority uses.
Do cooks need a food handler certificate?
Many US places do, but not all. The FDA says its Food Code is a model that regulators use to develop their own rules, so the answer depends on your state or county. Ask your local health department.
How long does food handler training take?
A basic food handler course usually takes a couple of hours, depending on the provider. The in-house refreshers on this list take 25 to 45 minutes each.
Is allergen training required for kitchen staff?
Requirements vary by location. The FDA says the nine major food allergens are identified by law in the US, and allergen awareness is good practice for every kitchen team.
This post is general information, not legal advice. For a decision about your own workplace, speak to a qualified lawyer or the regulator.
