SIT Great South partners with hospitality industry for training in Te Anau

Te Anau’s hospitality industry welcomed the opportunity for two-day skills training through a collaboration between Great South and Southern Institute of Technology (SIT).  

Great South GM Business Services Ben Lewis said the ongoing challenges in finding as

well as developing chefs, had prompted discussions between local hospitality businesses,

Great South, and SIT.

The outcome saw SIT run its first Te Anau course in food safety and basic knife handling skills, hosted by the Fat Duck Restaurant in September.

“The collaboration was very encouraging and demonstrated the model could be applied to

other training opportunities,” Mr Lewis said.

Fat Duck co-owner Cam Davies was positive about the experience and said he’d had good

feedback about the course, “It was well run, and it had good content that was useful.”

He was “super encouraged” to gain the support of three or four companies for the course.

“It was great to be a part of those early conversations and awesome to have SIT partnering

with industry in Te Anau. Now there’s that partnership, it’s exciting to see where it can go

from here,” Mr Davies said.

Amanda Whitaker, SIT Deputy CE (Acting) and GM – Planning, Development, Innovation

and People, said SIT was delighted to be able to deliver the training in Te Anau.

“Industry partnerships are key to making training more accessible across our regions to

help meet skills shortages and build capability. We are working closely with the Te Anau

community to offer further training across a wide range of subject areas,” she said.