Resources
Explore our resource library filled with practical research, customer results, and expert sessions, made to build the most skilled food manufacturing workforce. All drawn from real plants, real audits, and real frontline teams.
Resources
Explore our resource library filled with practical research, customer results, and expert sessions, made to build the most skilled food manufacturing workforce. All drawn from real plants, real audits, and real frontline teams.
The Library
Our resources library, sorted by format. Includes original research on the cost of training gaps, tools for running your own numbers, practical guides, and recorded sessions with food safety and plant leaders.
The Power of Role-Based Training: Aligning Learning to Food Safety Responsibilities
This session explores how role-based learning supports the competency expectations in SQF Edition 10. Topics such as onboarding, turnover, food safety performance, and career pathways that keep knowledge in the plant are explained through industry research and real-world experience.
SQF Edition 10 Food Safety Culture Checklist
Edition 10 introduces a new requirement: a documented Food Safety Culture Assessment Plan. Check your site against five areas, from leadership commitment through measurement and continuous improvement.
SQF Edition 10 Readiness Assessment
You know what changed in SQF Edition 10, but do you know what it means for your plant? Take our free 10-question assessment that shows where your training is strong, where the gaps are, and which ones to close first.
From Records to Readiness: The HR & L&D Playbook
SQF Edition 10 raises the bar from training completion to demonstrated competency. Explore our playbook for the key steps HR and L&D teams can take to prepare for what’s next.
Driving a Culture of Continuous Improvement
Learn how Wholestone Farms cut turnover from 40% to 20% and tripled training usage through building compliance, competency, and culture.
Maximizing Operational Performance: Aligning Equipment, Processes, and People
Director of Learning and Development Dave Gregory examines how competency-based learning improves time to productivity, machine availability, and operator confidence.
Food Safety Pathway Overview
The Food Safety pathway keeps employees current on changing regulations and prepared for periodic audits.
Industrial Maintenance Tech Pathway Overview
A foundation in the concepts, techniques, and best practices behind food manufacturing maintenance work.
Health and Safety Pathway Overview
Targeted safety training in concise micro-modules, each with an assessment, and covering topics like OSHA, PPE, hazardous materials, and more.
Career Pathways Course Catalog
Every WorkForge course, organized by pathway. See what is available off the shelf before you build anything custom.
Stop Plant-Floor Margin Leakage: How to Quantify and Eliminate Hidden Costs
WorkForge Advisor Tim Cook discusses the ten measurable cost drivers behind consistent employee development and how to put a number on each one.
Protecting Your Brand Starts with Safety
As regulatory oversight decreases, the inspections, reminders, and backstops you once counted on aren’t there as they used to be. Listen to safety leaders Erik Kurdelak and Gary Cluck share how to safeguard your brand.
Unlock Workforce Potential: Boost Productivity and Improve Retention
Listen to Cindie Serrano of Lincoln Premium Poultry and Wendy Bushell of Palermo's Pizza discuss cutting turnover and raising engagement through targeted learning.
Hidden Costs Calculator
Unplanned downtime, turnover, and quality issues have a number attached. Plug in your plant's figures against a midsize food manufacturing benchmark and see what your training gaps actually cost.
The Hidden Costs of Inconsistent Employee Development
Ten measurable cost drivers that quietly hit your P&L, from rework and scrap to overtime and preventable turnover. This report gives you the numbers and the internal language to make the case for structured training.
Lessons from Leaders
How Palermo's Pizza, Wholestone Farms, LifeLine Foods, and PPC Flexible Packaging cut turnover, raised retention, and improved productivity through structured workforce development.
How Employee Development Unlocks Peak Performance in Manufacturing
Learn from former LifeLine Foods CEO Kevin Kelly about how training creates manufacturing career paths, accelerates onboarding, and reduces burnout without adding headcount or new equipment.
Labor, Maintenance, and Innovation Solutions in Baking and Snack Manufacturing
Learn how baking and snack producers use structured learning to work through labor shortages, rising costs, and maintenance gaps.
How to Build a Skilled Maintenance Workforce
Our expert panel provides actionable insights on how a strong maintenance training program can help you overcome labor shortages, prevent costly equipment failures, and ensure consistent regulatory compliance.
WorkForge Safety Guide
A step-by-step guide to building a safety-first culture, covering how to protect capital equipment and create a plant environment employees want to work in.
From High Turnover to High Performance: LifeLine Foods’ Workforce Transformation
Manual training and paper quizzes gave way to 30+ custom modules. Production nearly doubled, and turnover fell.
Leadership and Supervisor Pathway Overview
Configurable leadership content that blends digital assessments and modules with instructor-led workshops and coaching.
Are You Ready for the FDA’s Food Traceability Requirement?
Erik Kurdelak breaks down what a food traceability plan requires, how to prepare your team, and the training behind it.
2025 Food Safety and Regulatory Updates for Food Manufacturers
Food Safety and Industry expert Erik Kurdelak walks through the regulatory and legal changes affecting training, production, supply chains, sanitation, and costs.
How Wholestone Farms Raised Performance and Retention
HR Director Grant Prenzlow discusses how Wholestone Farms raised employee performance and retention while lowering operating costs with WorkForge.
How PPC Flex Rebuilt Its L&D Program
HR leader Lisa Miller discusses how PPC Flex reworked its learning and development practices and HR processes to drive employee performance.
WorkForge 101
An introduction to WorkForge for teams building an L&D program, improving hiring and retention, or proving competency across the workforce.
From Challenges to Employer of Choice: The Impact of Skills Training in Buchanan County
A countywide training program funded by ARPA drove a 97% completion rate and turned one employee's growth into a countywide win.
Growing Their Own Workforce: Natoma Manufacturing’s Internship Success Story
A small-town talent pool was running dry. A summer internship pilot became a permanent onboarding pipeline.
Stepping Up in Career Technical Education
Hillyard lost its Electronics and Robotics instructor mid-year. After implementing a plug-and-play platform, students finished with an average completion rate six times the national average.
From Two Months to Two Weeks: Swiss-Tech’s Time-to-Productivity Transformation
Inconsistent, trainer-dependent onboarding took up to two months. Standardizing it cut time and cost by 62.5%
WorkForge in Food Industry Executive
Our team’s perspective on food safety, compliance, and workforce development, featured in Food Industry Executive.
The Hidden Cost of Managing SQF Compliance With Paper and Spreadsheets ↗
Food Industry Executive, August 2026
Why audit prep has become a recurring operational cost, and what SQF Edition 10’s emphasis on competency and verification changes about it.
What March Madness Teaches Food Manufacturers about Workforce Development ↗
Food Industry Executive, March 2026
Three fundamentals of workforce development: protecting your roster against turnover, modernizing how skills get built, and creating real bench strength.
WorkForge Elevates Food Safety Training with New Listeria, Ammonia, and Food Safety Content ↗
Food Industry Executive, February 2026
New Listeria modules covering contamination pathways, sanitation and response protocols, plus expanded anhydrous ammonia safety training for ammonia-based refrigeration.
Food Industry Leaders Share Key Insights on Workforce, Data, and Value Creation ↗
Food Industry Executive, December 2025
Industry leaders interviewed at EATS 2025 on margin pressure, compliance, talent retention, and digital adoption.
Where to Go From Here
Every resource here came out of real work in real plants. If something you read raised a question, or you are sizing up what structured training would take in your own operation, book a demo today.
