Tracy Winters wants to pass her tests just as much as the students served at UGA’s dining commons.
As food safety coordinator for Dining Services, she makes sure the dining commons are ready for their regular inspections and up to date on all their permits.
“We do have a high standard here. We want to make sure never falling below an A,” she said. “I hope people know we take it seriously and care about the staff and students we feed. My overall goal is to make sure they have a place to come and enjoy their friends and feel safe.”
Winters has always loved being in the kitchen. She graduated from culinary school and started as a cook in the Snelling Dining Commons in 2011. After taking some time away, she came back to UGA and helped open the Einstein Bros. Bagels at the Science Learning Center as assistant manager. Winters then managed a retail dining location in Terry College’s Business Learning Community. When her current position opened, she knew it would be a good fit.
“I really like the idea of working in food safety,” she said. “I took a different career path with food and ended up out of the kitchen.”
Winters obtained her food safety professional certificate and has been in her role for three years. She looked at the opportunity as a chance to both learn something new and use her knowledge of professional kitchens in a different way.
In particular, Winters enjoys sharing the importance of food safety with new employees. She helps with their orientation, introducing them to the food safety aspects of working in professional kitchens. She sets them up with two training modules — one on general food safety and one specifically on allergens. She then goes into the kitchen with them, along with a training specialist, for hands-on learning.
As part of her role, she also monitors for recalls and conducts mock inspections at all dining locations to make sure they are following health codes. That includes things like checking for proper labels and monitoring refrigeration temperatures.
“You’re feeding thousands of people, and everybody is different,” she said. “We feed people with immunocompromised systems. We’re feeding children. We’re feeding elderly people. We feed everybody.”
Winters said that Dining Services strictly monitors for allergens, and they take the vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and Halal options just as seriously. Dishes are marked, and they make every effort to include any of the “Big 9” allergens in the name of the dish. Dining Services has adopted the use of the purple scheme professional kitchens use to denote something is completely allergen-free.
Winters splits her time among the dining commons. She’s also working on inspections and permits for UGA’s new dining, learning and wellness center. She frequently partners with Environmental Safety to address any questions or issues.
In her own kitchen, Winters loves baking everything from breads to a chocolate mousse cake. She likes the fast pace and busyness as well as the creativity of preparing food for loved ones.
“When we have time, we generally sit down as a family and eat. We come together over food a lot in my family,” she said.
Winters is working toward a degree in public health and continues to learn more about the ways she can make a difference in her role.
“These students sometimes don’t have a choice but to eat our food, and they should be able to have trust in us to eat a safe meal. That’s really important to me,” she said.
