WASHINGTON — The American Bakers Association’s Bakers Manufacturing Academy has debuted a new course for all bakery operations: Baking Basics 101. 

The online program introduces the fundamental knowledge, skills, area of responsibilities, and behaviors essential to bakery operations, according to the ABA. In addition, the lesson is designed to complement a facility’s existing onboarding training.

“There is a real need for companies to virtually train new employees in all positions and get them up to speed as quickly as possible,” said Robb MacKie, president and chief executive officer of the ABA. “The Baking Basics 101 lesson will improve plant efficiency by ensuring new staff come to their position with fundamental baking knowledge and vocabulary.”

The ABA said that students who complete the course will be proficient in a number of areas, including workplace safety, food safety and hygiene, and technical training. The course can be completed in about one hour.

The ABA said the lesson is versatile in that students can complete the course in sections to accommodate downtime and change over schedules. After successfully passing the final test, students receive a certificate of completion.   

In addition to Baking Basics 101, the ABA said its Bakers Manufacturing Academy has launched a new learning portal. The new online platform has been designed to improve the user experience for both students and administrators. New features of the platform include intuitive user interface, a streamlined enrollment process, improved student progress tracking, notifications, and chat, forums and announcement features.

“ABA’s educational offerings bring so much value to ABA member companies integrating this training into their onboarding process,” said Vanessa Vial, assistant director of education at the ABA. “This new course, along with the new Baking Manufacturing Academy, will help members’ employees grow in their careers.” 

Individuals who had access to the previous academy portal will be able to log in to the new system using their existing credentials and continue with enrolling students to continue their educational programs.