SIT30821 Certificate III in Commercial Cookery

We deliver this course through workplace (apprenticeship). Our official course page lists a duration of 24-36 months. These are our delivery arrangements for this course; the qualification and unit comparisons below explain the national requirements. Check the official course page for current intake and enrolment details.

View our official course details and booking information. Course details checked 2 October 2026.

Course background and related accredited requirements

SIT30821 is a twenty-five-unit Certificate III from the SIT Tourism, Travel and Hospitality Training Package — and twenty of those twenty-five units are core. That ratio is the single most important thing to understand about this qualification: only five units are elective.

It supersedes SIT30816, and unusually the two are equivalent. It is also one of our geographically restricted qualifications, deliverable in four states rather than all eight jurisdictions.

At a glance

Twenty core units, and what that tells you

Most qualifications give the RTO and the learner real latitude through electives. This one does not. Eighty per cent of SIT30821 is fixed by the training package, because a commercial cook is expected to demonstrate a defined range of techniques rather than a self-selected subset. You cannot choose not to learn seafood.

Read as a list, this is a working section run: stocks and sauces, proteins across poultry, meat and seafood, vegetables and farinaceous, pastry and desserts, plus vegetarian, vegan and special dietary work. Around it sit the things that keep a kitchen legal and functioning — two food safety units, stock control, cleaning, costing and workplace safety.

The food safety consequence nobody mentions

Two food safety units are core, not one: SITXFSA005 Use hygienic practices for food safety and SITXFSA006 Participate in safe food handling practices. The front of house qualifications carry only SITXFSA005.

That difference has a practical consequence worth knowing. SITXFSA005 plus SITXFSA006 together constitute the SITSS00069 Food Safety Supervision skill set — the unit pair a Food Safety Supervisor needs. So a SIT30821 graduate already holds the national units behind the FSS role, which a SIT30622 or SIT30722 graduate does not.

Two caveats before anyone relies on that. The FSS requirement is on the business, and the certificate it relies on must have been issued within the preceding five years under Standard 3.2.2A — so an old qualification stops satisfying it even though the Statement of Attainment never expires. And in New South Wales the business needs that state's own certificate from a provider approved by the NSW Food Authority under Food Act 2003 s 106H; we are not on that list, so the national units are necessary but not sufficient there. See Food Safety Supervisor.

What the units actually assess is also worth knowing before you enrol. SITXFSA005 requires four hygiene practices — hand-washing, uniform and PPE, personal health and hygiene, and hygienic food service — each demonstrated on at least three occasions. SITXFSA006 requires hazard control at nine critical control points (receiving, storing, preparing, processing, displaying, serving, packaging, transporting, disposing) plus the procedure to calibrate a temperature probe.

Prerequisites

Most of the core cookery units carry prerequisites and must be sequenced. In the training package these are marked with an asterisk, and they include SITHCCC023, SITHCCC027, SITHCCC028, SITHCCC029, SITHCCC030, SITHCCC031, SITHCCC035, SITHCCC036, SITHCCC037, SITHCCC041, SITHCCC042, SITHCCC043, SITHKOP009, SITHPAT016 and SITXINV006.

The food safety units generally sit upstream of the practical cookery units, which is why they cannot simply be scheduled in any order. This matters for anyone planning a training schedule or assessing recognition of prior learning — and it is the main reason this qualification cannot be compressed arbitrarily, whatever a timetable claims.

Packaging rules

Twenty-five units must be completed: twenty core and five elective. The electives are structured as:

• 3 units from Group A or Group B
• 2 units from Group A, Group B or Group C

All electives chosen must contribute to a valid, industry-supported vocational outcome, and selection must be guided by the job outcome sought, local industry requirements, and the complexity of skills appropriate to the AQF level. That is a packaging rule, not advice.

So the shape of the elective tail is: three units that must come from the cookery and catering or Asian cookery streams, then two that may come from Group A, Group B or Group C. Those final two are the only place a third stream enters the qualification at all.

Group A — Cookery and catering

SITHCCC032 and SITHCCC033 are worth a second look for anyone working in volume catering, aged care or a production kitchen: cook-chill, cook-freeze and re-thermalising are precisely the processes where Standard 3.2.2A's cooling and reheating timeframes bite hardest, and they are the transitions where most food safety failures actually happen.

Group B — Asian cookery

This is a fuller stream than most people expect — ten units, enough to give a qualification a genuine Asian cookery emphasis within the five elective slots. All carry prerequisites.

Group C — additional specialised options

There is a third elective group. Group C holds additional specialised options, and it is reachable only through the final two elective slots — the ones the packaging rules open to Group A, Group B or Group C. It is the narrowest door in the qualification, and anything taken through it still has to satisfy the same test as every other elective: it must contribute to a valid, industry-supported vocational outcome and sit at a complexity appropriate to AQF level 3.

Because only five slots exist and three must come from Group A or B, the realistic choice is between a catering and production emphasis and an Asian cookery emphasis, with Group C available at the margin. Decide which before enrolling; it is not easily changed later.

The SIT30816 supersession

SIT30821 supersedes SIT30816 Certificate III in Commercial Cookery, dated 9 June 2022, and the National Register records the two as equivalent.

Equivalence records equivalent workplace outcomes for SIT30816 and SIT30821. It does not automatically award a SIT30821 certificate. If you need the newer qualification or are transitioning during study, we must review completed units, authenticate evidence and determine the applicable credit and remaining requirements.

This varies across our set, and the variation is the point:

The equivalence flag is set qualification by qualification and cannot be inferred from the fact that one code replaced another. Check the register.

SIT30816 is superseded and is not on our scope. Check any advertised code on training.gov.au.

Where we can deliver it

This is an important limitation. According to our current delivery information, SIT30821 is available in South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia — not all states and territories.

An RTO may only deliver and assess within its registered scope. If you are in New South Wales, Queensland, the ACT or the Northern Territory, we do not currently offer this qualification to you — search the code on training.gov.au for RTOs with it on scope, then ask each provider whether it delivers in your location.

International students

SIT30821 is not CRICOS-registered. Neither is SIT40521 Certificate IV in Kitchen Management.

That leaves a genuine gap worth naming: an international student on a student visa cannot enrol in either of our dedicated cookery qualifications. Only three of our courses are CRICOS-registered — SIT40422 (116358F), SIT50322 (118427D) and SIT50422 (115534C). The route available with a culinary emphasis is the Diploma of Hospitality Management, culinary stream.

This catches people out precisely because cookery is the qualification international students most often come looking for.

Pay: the Level 4 floor, and why it is a tradesperson grade

This is the most financially consequential thing on the page.

Three of the four awards covering hospitality premises carry the same provision. An employee has the appropriate level of training if they have completed a relevant qualification or the relevant units of competency — and the note attached to that definition sets a floor:

The minimum classification level for an employee who has completed AQF Certificate III or higher qualifications relevant to the classification in which they are employed and who makes use of skills and knowledge derived from Certificate III competencies relevant to the work undertaken is Level 4.

SIT30821 is an AQF Certificate III, so it reaches that floor. And for a cook the floor lands somewhere specific: under MA000119, Schedule A defines the Level 4 classification as Cook grade 3 (tradesperson) — alongside Food and beverage attendant grade 4 (tradesperson) — and the award's own "standard rate" is defined as the Level 4 rate.

So SIT30821, used at work, is an explicit route to a tradesperson grade without serving an apprenticeship. That is how the award is written, and for a cook who came up through the section rather than through a training contract it is the most valuable sentence on this page. Note the ladder continues above it: MA000119 Level 5 is Cook grade 4 (tradesperson) and Level 6 is Cook grade 5 (tradesperson).

Three caveats. Under MA000009 and MA000119 the qualification must be relevant to the classification you are employed in and you must make use of the skills — it is not automatic on completion. MA000058 states the floor for "AQF Certificate III qualifications" without the "or higher", and adds that the Fair Work Commission may require the employee to demonstrate they utilise the relevant skills. And disputes go to different places: clause 40 of MA000009, clause 34 of MA000119, or referral to the Fair Work Commission under MA000058.

Which award covers the kitchen you work in

Decided by the premises, not the job title. Each award covers its industry "to the exclusion of any other modern award", so exactly one applies.

Two boundaries are commonly got wrong. A registered club is not covered by MA000009 — clause 4.4(d)(i) expressly excludes "clubs registered or recognised under State or Territory legislation", and clause 4.3 of MA000058 requires the club to be registered under a liquor, gaming, associations incorporation or corporations statute and to operate not-for-profit for its members and the community. And a night club is not a club for award purposes, being commercial: that is MA000119.

For a cook specifically, the same qualification and the same dishes sit under a different instrument depending on whether the kitchen is in a pub, a restaurant, an RSL club or a food court — and the Level 4 argument fails in the food court, because MA000003 has no equivalent provision. Note also that a contract caterer is MA000009, not MA000119.

No pay rates are published here. Award rates re-set every 1 July and a stale figure is worse than none — use the Fair Work Ombudsman's Pay and Conditions Tool with your award code.

The migration question

The occupation determines the pathway, not the qualification. Through Trades Recognition Australia only Chef (ANZSCO 351311) and Cook (351411) are assessable in this field, and a skills assessment is a separate process from holding a qualification. A TRA migration skills assessment and recognition of prior learning are different processes with different purposes — see skills assessment.

Cookery is one of the few hospitality areas where a migration pathway exists at all: Cafe or Restaurant Manager is not on the Core Skills Occupation List, so the management qualifications do not carry one.

Entry requirements

The training package sets no prerequisite qualification for entry to SIT30821.

We apply our own enrolment conditions: minimum age 16, documentation for learners under 17 relating to school attendance, language, literacy and numeracy at or around ACSF Level 3, and for apprentices and trainees, employment under a training contract with employer referral.

Commercial cookery is commonly delivered as an apprenticeship, which is why the training-contract condition matters here more than on most qualifications. All learners complete a pre-training review, required under Standard 2.2 of the Outcome Standards.

Recognition of prior learning is worth raising at that review. RTOs must offer it under Standard 1.6, and it is a genuine assessment against the same evidence rather than a waiver — but for someone who has worked a section for years, on a twenty-five-unit qualification it can remove real study. Bring your USI and any existing Statements of Attainment.

Note the distinction from credit transfer, which sits under Standard 1.7: credit transfer recognises units you have already completed at any RTO, with your Statement of Attainment as the evidence and no reassessment at all. RPL assesses prior skills, learning and experience. Ask for the right one. We first verify the evidence and equivalence, check that the units fit your training product, and check for licensing or regulatory restrictions before granting credit. See ASQA’s credit-transfer guidance.

For nationally recognised training, a Unique Student Identifier (USI) is generally required before a qualification or Statement of Attainment can be issued, unless an applicable exemption applies. See the official USI exemption guidance. A USI is free at usi.gov.au. If you already have one, recover it rather than creating another.

If you are doing it as an apprenticeship

Because this qualification is so often delivered under a training contract, three provisions are worth knowing as entitlements rather than courtesies:

• A full-time traineeship is 38 ordinary hours per week, of which 20 per cent must be approved training
• You are entitled to be released from work without loss of pay for training and assessment specified in the training contract, and that time counts as time worked
• Apprentice wage progression is competency-based. Once your employer receives written advice that the RTO has assessed you as meeting the requirements, they have 21 days to raise a disagreement. If none is raised, progression follows

Your training plan is what makes that administrable, because it maps units to the progression milestones. Given the prerequisite chains described above, the sequencing in that plan directly determines when you can progress. Read it rather than filing it.

Where it leads

The direct progression is SIT40521 Certificate IV in Kitchen Management at thirty-three units, which adds menu design and costing, cooking operations planning, food safety program development, rostering and financial management — the move from cooking to running a section or a kitchen.

The credit position is unusually good. Seventeen of SIT30821's twenty core units also sit in SIT40521's core — the twelve SITHCCC units plus SITHPAT016, SITHKOP010, SITXINV006, SITXFSA005 and SITXFSA006. The three that do not carry across are SITHKOP009, SITXHRM007 and SITXWHS005, the last replaced at Certificate IV by the more demanding SITXWHS007.

So a SIT30821 holder progressing to SIT40521 may be eligible for credit transfer for the seventeen shared core units; we confirm the remaining study after reviewing the evidence and the elective plan. Credit transfer recognises identical units administratively and should not require reassessment — it is not the same thing as RPL. We first verify the evidence and equivalence, check that the units fit your training product, and check for licensing or regulatory restrictions before granting credit.

Beyond that, SIT50422 Diploma of Hospitality Management at AQF 5 is our ceiling, delivered in Victoria only.

Duration, licensing and the certificate

Twenty-five units with prerequisite chains running through most of the core raises three questions that the packaging rules do not answer: how long it should take, whether it is a licence, and when the certificate arrives.

Volume of learning: one to two years

The Australian Qualifications Framework sets an indicative volume of learning for a Certificate III of one to two years, and that figure is independent of delivery mode — it is not a count of classroom or kitchen hours, and it applies equally to institutional delivery and to an apprenticeship. The governing test is that the volume of learning must be sufficient for graduates to achieve the learning outcomes of the qualification.

On a qualification that is 80 per cent core, with prerequisite chains that force the food safety units upstream of practical cookery, that test has teeth. You cannot demonstrate stocks, sauces, poultry, meat, seafood, pastry, desserts and special dietary work concurrently.

ASQA names two compliance risks that bear directly on this. The first is accelerating or shortening training without allowing students sufficient time for skill development and knowledge application. The second is marketing unrealistically short courses, which either compromises the integrity of the training product or leaves the student paying for an extension. A twenty-five-unit cookery qualification advertised well below the AQF band is a reason to ask how the prerequisites are sequenced.

The qualification is not a licence

No licensing, legislative or certification requirements apply to this qualification at the time of publication. SIT30821 is a qualification, not a permit. No food regulator issues, approves or endorses it, and completing it does not by itself authorise you to do anything.

The skills must still be applied in accordance with Commonwealth and state or territory legislation, Australian standards and industry codes of practice — the Food Standards Code and state food Acts sit on the business and the food handler whatever the certificate says.

The distinction matters here because two licensing-adjacent units are core. SITXFSA005 speaks to the food handler training obligation under Standard 3.2.2A, and together with SITXFSA006 it forms the unit pair behind the Food Safety Supervisor role. But as set out above, the FSS duty is imposed on the business, the certificate relied on must be recent, and New South Wales requires its own state-issued certificate. It is the units, and then a separate state scheme, that carry the regulatory weight — not the qualification.

When the certificate is issued, and what is on it

An RTO must not issue AQF certification documentation unless the person has been assessed as meeting the requirements of the training product. Once that assessment is complete, it must issue within 30 calendar days of completion of the assessment, provided the student has completed the qualification — or the units they subsequently withdrew from — and has paid all agreed fees. The thirty days runs from the assessment, not from the end of an apprenticeship term or the next graduation date.

The testamur must carry the name, registration code and logo of the issuing organisation; the code and title of the qualification; the Nationally Recognised Training logo, used in accordance with the NRT Logo Conditions of Use; the signature of an authorised individual; a seal, corporate identifier or unique watermark; and a statement recognising the qualification within the Australian Qualifications Framework. Where they apply it also carries the industry descriptor, an occupational or functional stream title in brackets, an "Achieved through Australian Apprenticeship arrangements" statement — which is the line that matters on a cookery apprenticeship — or a language notation.

One thing must not appear. The Unique Student Identifier must not be printed on a qualification or a statement of attainment. A certificate arriving with a USI on its face is a defective document.

And the record keeps. An RTO must retain records of all AQF certification documentation for thirty years, which is why a replacement is obtainable decades later — and why a document issued under one of our earlier trading names is still verifiable against RTO 3722.

What you receive

On completion, a qualification testamur for SIT30821, recorded on your national training transcript against your USI.

On partial completion, a Statement of Attainment for the units achieved, which must list the full title and national code of each unit and identify the qualification they form part of. It stays on your transcript permanently and credit-transfers at any Australian RTO. Given the prerequisite chains here, a learner who stops part-way still holds everything they completed.

About us

We are Complete Hospitality Training, RTO 3722, CRICOS provider code 04242E, Level 3, 28 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne VIC 3000, and 410 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010. Contact melbourne@cht.edu.au or +61 3 9654 1554.

SIT30821 is on our scope of registration as deliver and assess in South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia.

See also all courses, about us, skills assessment and the student toolkit.

We link to the relevant course and regulatory sources in this guide. Check those sources for current requirements, and confirm course availability, delivery, fees and entry requirements with us before enrolling. Equivalence wording clarified on 2 October 2026. We verify evidence and applicable requirements before making credit-transfer decisions; an equivalence mapping is not an automatic award of a newer qualification. ASQA credit-transfer guidance; ASQA training-product changes.