Member Testimonials

NSF International has had a longstanding partnership with OFPA for many years. We value our partnership and are continually impressed with OFPA’s passion and focus on bringing Ontario’s food and beverage industry professionals together for information exchange, networking and learning opportunities.

As new members of the OFPA, we’ve found it to be a great place to connect with like-minded individuals. The recent symposium they hosted consisted of highly experienced experts in the field of Food Safety whose insights will only help us improve our practices going forward

OFPA membership is valuable to my business in several ways: Education; Information; Relationship building and Networking (face to face and via technology).  If food safety is important to your business you should be a member of OFPA!

“OFPA has always been a unique cross-section of industry, government and service organizations promoting partnership, collaboration and professionalism across the Ontario food industry. The International Association of Food Protection (IAFP) has recognized OFPA, various OFPA member companies and individuals as having contributed to the global food safety knowledge base. As a Past President, I have always felt the association’s strength lies in the peer connections, friendships and openness which has been at the heart of the organization for many years.”

In the last few years, we have been taking our students to the OFPA “Fall Food Safety Symposium.” This event has helped our students to get the needed exposure to the current trends within the food industry while providing the opportunity for the students to network with people working in the food industry.

On behalf of myself and the rest of the students of the Food Safety and Quality Assurance Program at Conestoga College, I would like to say thank you for your contribution to the FSQA program and making the Ontario Food Protection Association Award possible.

As a volunteer for the Food Bank of Waterloo Region, I appreciated the need for everyone to be food
secure. This passion for food security led me to food safety and quality assurance. In the modern
globalized community, with ever longer and more complex supply chains, the importance of having
systems in place to ensure safe and quality food from farm to fork is paramount to families across the globe.

Conestoga College and the FSQA program lay the foundational knowledge on how to ensure safe and
quality food, this includes study of food safety management systems and regulations as well as the
science of food chemistry and microbiology, taught by professors of varied backgrounds including QA supervisors, directors, and food safety inspectors.

Conestoga College also offered me the opportunity to interact with students from across the globe.
With a strong international student population, and a focus on teamwork, I was able to get to know
many of my fellow students and learn about other approaches and attitudes to food safety.
This program, and many like it benefit greatly from generous donors such as yourself. For this reason, I was honoured to receive the Ontario Food Protection Association Award.

With kind regards!

My name is Linh Nguyen, and it is an honor to be chosen for the Ontario Food Protection
Association Award in Conestoga College for 2022.

Since high school, I was passionate about Food Safety due to the increase in food fraud cases in
my country. Therefore, I decided to pursue a food safety career. Thanks to my parents, I had such
a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study in Canada. In the multi-cultural environment of
Conestoga College, I have learned a lot about food safety principles, GFSI schemes, and food laws
and regulations.

Since May 2022, I have already had a job in Sweet Maple Candies as a QA technician, the position
I have ever wanted. The experience from Conestoga perfectly equipped me to join the food
industry. It is essential to mention that the OFPA award helped me decide to move from Kitchener
to Toronto to get the job.

I am genuinely grateful for the award, and a special thank you to all the professors in Conestoga.
This scholarship is an excellent milestone in starting my career in Canada.

I would like to thank you for making this award possible! With this award I have put a large
payment to my student loans which is amazing. Especially with the increasing prices of rent
groceries and gas saving is hard enough so this award has really helped me to continue to pay
off debt so I can eventually maybe start saving a down payment for a house. Being at
Conestoga I really wanted to get hands on learning experience so that when I entered the
workforce, I would be able to thrive. Having worked at a food manufacturing plant for 3
summers (one summer on the line in packaging and the other two as their quality and food
safety summer student) I realized I wanted the career path in food safety and quality as you get
to work with a team in the plant to produce safe and good quality food and I also really liked
how everyday isn’t the same as any issue could come up and you needed to be ready to come
up with a plan. Overall, I feel like Conestoga really prepared me for the workforce because of
the experinced professors and the labs for microbiology and in the pilot plant. And before I
even finished the program I had a job set up as a QA management team assocaite, which I am
loving. I get to put my knowladge to work and still continue to learn! My next steps are to do
my PCQI. Once again thank you for your generosity this has truly helped me with my education.

Sincerely,
Gillian Chapman