Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - With the increasingdevelopment of tourism and services, working in the culinary industryoffers many development opportunities and the possibility of a higherincome than other occupations.

However, according to the Vietnam Chefs Association (VICA),the number of people involved in the culinary profession did not meet thecurrent increasing demand for recruitment.

After a "frozen" period during theCOVID-19 pandemic, the tourism sector was slowly recovering, mostly with the boostfrom domestic travel, and since late August the demand for cookingand bakery staff and chefs in restaurants, hotels, resorts and bakershad risen as the tourism industry started offering new promotion,according to Nhan dan (People) newspaper.

However, these jobs require experience as wellas qualifications.

Many positions at five-star resorts need candidateswho have graduated from high school and have work experience.

VICA President Nguyen Thuong Quan told the newspaper thatthe tourism sector needed 40,000 workers every year, of which culinarystaff accounted for 8 percent.

According to figures released by the Ministry of Planning andInvestment, as of late last year, there were about 540,000 restaurants, fastfood outlets, cafes, bars and pubs across the country.

However, only 20-30 percent of culinary workers wereprofessionally trained.

“The number of people trained in cookery schools islower than those who have hands-on experience as chefs,” said Quan.

“Cooks who have done apprenticeshipshave limited knowledge of culinary culture, food preservation andprocessing methods, food hygiene and safety, and do not knowabout chemical additives and often guess when it comes to seasoning,"Quan said.

Even those with short-term training andcertificates had poor skills, Quan said.

This workforce only met the demand for assistants, notchefs, because they had only been on three to six month-cooking classes and didnot have the knowledge and skills to be chefs.

Besides, most short-term cooking courses were cheap and didnot provide the right equipment for students to train properly, Quan said.

For the luxury dishes with expensive ingredients,students could only learn by "observing", he added.

Although it is a country with great potential to developculinary tourism and become "the world's kitchen", Vietnam hasnot yet found a way to tap its potential.

“At present, in most big hotels, the chefs are foreigners.This means they do not know the correct way to cook Vietnamese dishesperfectly,” Quan said.

“This was one of the reasons Vietnamese cuisine remainedunpopular and had not become an independent tourism product,” he said.

To promote national cuisine as a tourism product,cooks are needed with experience, qualifications and knowledgeof culinary culture, food processing techniques, hygiene and safety, andeven medical knowledge to ensure dishes are both tasty, safe and nutritious.

Nguyen Thanh Binh, vice director of the Hotel Department at theVietnam National Administration of Tourism, said at present some collegesand vocational training centres were offering cooking andbaking classes following the Vietnam Tourism Occupational SkillsStandards (VTOS).

Students were being trained in multiple skillsrelated to various culinary fields such as Vietnamese and western dishes andcakes, said Binh.

Some training establishments such as the SaigontouristTourism and Hotel College, Hanoi Tourism College and Pegasus Collegehad quality facilities with experienced trainers whoprovided students with the knowledge and skills needed to workat high-end tourist establishments, Bình said.

"Large hotel groups had their own training systems, thestaff working there were improved professionalism, matured over time, meetingthe requirements of the four to five-star hotels and resorts," she said.

At present, many colleges send their students to work asinterns in hotels and resorts to give the experience of a professionalworking environment.

“Learning in schools helps students grasp the basic knowledgeof the profession, while internships in the hotel environment enrichtheir knowledge and give them the confidence to apply for jobs aftergraduation,” said Hoang Van Tung, a cooking teacher at Le Quy Don TechnologyCollege./.