By GEORGIA WESTGARTH
A PROGRESSIVE and new culinary learning centre, Silk Education and Training, is building industry-ready chefs, bakers, kitchen hands and entrepreneurs from its Cranbourne hub.
The vocational education and training centre has been operating from the Cranbourne commercial kitchen for almost 12 months.
Offering an extensive range of certificates from commercial cookery to hospitality, Silk also provides day courses for immediate entry level jobs.
Silk training manager Georgina Hamilton said locals were able to book in for accredited and non-accredited courses.
“We run a one day food handling course and first aid course, as well as skills courses like latte art, cupcake making and food plating which aren’t accredited,” Georgina said.
But it’s Silk’s ability to offer adaptable courses with highly skilled professional trainers that sets it apart.
“All of our trainers are current in the industry, they eat, breath and sleep hospitality and some still work in the industry outside of their teaching,” she said. “This means once our students graduate, they have current skills and knowledge that can be applied immediately.
“Our trainers are very adaptable and able to tailor classes to meet the needs of their students and a lot of out our students already work in the industry and come to us to grow their skills in a certain area.”
Silk’s state of the art Cranbourne kitchen is its latest to open in Melbourne, with facilities also available in North Melbourne and a soon to open training kitchen in South Melbourne.
With 800 students across the state, Cranbourne currently has around 100 students listed but Georgina hopes that number will grow.
“We have trainees aged from 18 to 60 and we hold 16 students in each class, so they are nice and small,” she said.
“Silk has been around for five years, we are very young and taking the industry by storm in hospitality training.”
The organisation also has access to offshore kitchens and puts their students through on the job experience in Melbourne restaurants, cafes and hospitality establishments.
But it’s their “feel good” work which Ms Hamilton holds dear.
“We ran a course for disadvantaged people in India, they came from villages to Deli and received Silk training in hospitality, before the course was finished some had landed jobs in hotels.”
