Get or Renew Your South Dakota Food Handler Card

South Dakota has no law that requires a food handler card to work at a food establishment.

However, owing to the importance of food safety, many South Dakota restaurants and other foodservice operations like schools and hospitals still require that you do.

Additionally, long-term care facilities may require dietary staff to complete food handler training to meet specific in-service education requirements.

For example, all nursing homes and assisted living facilities in South Dakota must provide in-service training for their dietary and food-handling employees within 30 days of hire and annually (1, 2).

These topics must include:

• proper handwashing techniques
• safe food handling and preparation techniques
• foodborne illnesses
• safe serving and distribution practices
• safe leftover food handling
• time and temperature controls for food safety
• general cleaning and sanitation

Because food handler training programs touch on each of these topics, nursing homes and assisted living facilities often turn to them to meet the state’s required dietary in-service training.

Other healthcare facilities like hospitals also rely on food handler training programs since they too must provide regular in-service training to their dietary staff on various food safety topics.

Even though South Dakota doesn’t require that you earn a food handler card, doing so can make it easier to land your next foodservice job or even negotiation a higher salary.