Trained culinary students ready for employment: Community Kitchen Academy graduating students

Trained culinary students ready for employment: Community Kitchen Academy in Barre and Burlington will be graduating students February and March of 2014.

The Vermont Foodbank’s Community Kitchen Academy is an intensive 13-week culinary job training program located in Barre and Burlington.*  Since 2009, over 108 students have graduated from CKA and well over 80% have been successful in finding employment. The hands-on instruction and college level academic work required of these students makes them ideal candidates for a position in the culinary industry. During the 13 week session, students produce over 19,000 servings of food using local, seasonally gleaned produce as well as meats, grains and dairy sourced from the Vermont Foodbank’s statewide food rescue operations. Chef instructors focus on small-group instruction and hands-on training in a variety of essential skills including safe knife handling, managing food allergies, food receiving and storage, preparing nutritious recipes using appropriate portion sizes, equipment identification, and a wide range of cooking methods. The combination of these specialized culinary skills and an integrated like skills program ensures that students will graduate as certified professionals who are fully qualified and prepared to become valuable employees in the food service industry. Each student completes ServSafe Food Safety training, a nationally recognized food production and storage safety certification program.

*CKA is a statewide program of the Vermont Foodbank in local partnership with: Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf to operate CKA Burlington and Central Vermont Community Action Council to operate CKA BarreCKA is accredited to provide qualifying graduates 9 college-level academic credits.

Do you have staffing needs?

Contact the CKA chef instructors to find the right employee for your business.

CKA Burlington

Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf

Chef Instructor James Consentino

802.540.2571

cka@cvoeo.org

CKA Barre

Central Vermont Community Action Council

Chef Instructor Jamie Eisenberg

802.479.1053

cka@cvcac.org

Why should you hire our Culinary Graduates?

GRADUATE PROFILE

1. 13 consecutive weeks of working in a high volume production kitchen — 6 hours of instruction and production daily. Every student utilizes the latest commercial tools and equipment to produce quality entrees and side dishes daily.

2. ServSafe certification training.

3. Extensive knife skills experience.

4. Recipe comprehension, conversion, measurement and execution.

5. Organize mise en place and prioritize production lists.

6. Hands-on knowledge of vegetable cookery, soups, sauces and salad making.

7. Basic meat handling and cooking techniques.

8. Fundamentals of baking.

9. Breakfast, a la carte, and banquet production.

10. Life skills training on how to work in a team, solve problems, and budget resources and time.