The NZ Certificate in Stock Feed Manufacture
The NZFMA strongly supports training for feed manufacturers and blender staff. Accordingly the
NZFMA office is coordinating industry training. The course content is set out below.
The content is comprehensive and will ensure that employees who complete the course have a
wide-ranging knowledge of the feed manufacturing industry. It is New Zealand-focused, so while one
of our training providers are based in Australia they have previously undertaken training courses
here and the course content has been thoroughly designed to be applicable to New Zealand
manufacturing conditions. Our training providers are: Competenz (Industry Training Organisation);
Australian Collage of Training; Neil Gannon (external trainer for nutrition and statistics), and industry
personnel to promote learning.
This course is designed for all students to pass. Ages of students have ranged from early twenties to
late fifties and with skills ranging from computer literate to no formal school qualifications. Success
is guaranteed by the students effort.
To be eligible to enrol in this course you must be a current NZFMA member.
The invitation to nominate your trainees for the next feed training course will be emailed to all
members in November 2014. We currently run one course per year and positions are limited. We
can take a maximum of 12 trainees per course.
We also strongly recommend that each company (that has a trainee on this course) has a
Competenz approved assessor. This role would be suitable for the operations/feedmill manager
because they would be responsible for assessing their trainee’s work, and determining whether they
are competent or not. This is also a very useful skill to have in your workplace. The assessor training
cost is approximately $250 per assessor. For more information on this please contact the NZFMA
office and ask for Steven Kerr.
If you cannot have a Competenz Assessor, then the NZFMA can assess your trainees work material at
a cost of $100 per trainee. However, we would strongly encourage you to have your own Competenz
assessor within your company because they would have a better understanding of your workplace
procedures which would also improve your trainees learning.
The course content contains practical and theory components of the following topics:
1)
Conduct routine maintenance
2)
Operate a pelleting process*
3)
Operate a grinding process
4)
Operate a mixing/blending process
5)
Monitor the implementation of Quality and Food Safety
6)
Monitor the implementation of OSH policies and procedures
7)
Operate process in a production system
8)
Handle bulk materials in a storage area
9)
Implement environmental policies and procedures
10)
Implement the pest prevention program
11)
Apply principles of Statistical control (Completed during 2nd workshop only).
12)
Nutrition (Completed during 2nd workshop only).
Added to these 12 course subjects students must complete the Competenz Core Units workbook
which covers various H&S, Quality, Environmental, etc subjects.
Core skills:
• Food safety programme
• Food processing skills
• Health and safety
• Quality in food processing
• Team communications skills relevant to food processing.
For more information regarding the ‘core units’ and the qualification provided by Competenz, please
use the following link: Food and Related Product Processing - Level 3.pdf
For Blending companies we would recommend that the “Operate a pelleting process” be dropped
and one of the subjects below takes its place, this would be more relevant for the blending sector of
the industry:
1. Produce blended dry food or related products using automated production equipment.
2. Blend liquid food products using automated production equipment.
Below is the breakdown of the costs for the 2014 course (this is to be used as a guide only because
costs may change from year to year).
1. Enrolment fee (Course administration fee) $58.89
2. Resource fee $72.00 (modules and workbooks)
3. Trainee costs (i.e. delivery and assessment) $3,055.56
4. The fee for the external trainer, Neil Gannon, who will provide specific training on nutrition and
statistics, will be additional but will be evenly split between the companies based on the number of
trainees attending.
The gross cost per trainee is therefore estimated to be $3,548.95 for the 2014 course (including Neil
Gannon’s cost estimate) but the net cost will reduce due to course subsidies and reimbursements.
Other costs to consider
The costs of travel and accommodation to the workshops are the responsibility of the trainee’s
company. The NZFMA will cover luncheon costs where appropriate, and for the 1st workshop will
cover the costs of the welcoming meal for attendees.
There will be 2 workshops for 2 days each. These are:
Workshop 1
Conduct Routine Maintenance, Introduction to Microbiology and Pelleting
Workshop 2
Nutrition and Statistics.
The location of these will be prioritised by mill suitability and location.
Reimbursement
Competenz will reimburse $708.00 per student. This is based on $12 per credit for 59 credits per
trainee once the course work is completed (This rate may be subject to change).
The NZFMA strongly supports feed industry training, and thus will pay a subsidy of $750.00 per
trainee upon course completion AND obtaining of the qualification.
A total recovery amount of $1,458.00 per successful trainee will therefore be reimbursed to the
company.
Total course costs payable
Thus, the net course cost per trainee for the 2014 course is estimated to be $2,090.95 i.e., $3,548.95
(gross course costs) minus $1458 (subsidy from NZFMA and Competenz reimbursements)
Course costs are subject to changes in the Australia/NZ dollar exchange rate.
If you would like further information please contact the NZFMA Office.