Designing Digitally, Inc. is proud to announce that The Food Detective Training Game has earned a Gold Award from the Horizon Interactive Awards in the Training and e-Learning category.
This recognition goes beyond creative execution. It highlights a project built to solve a meaningful challenge in the real world. The Food Detective Training Game was created to strengthen how food safety inspections are conducted by providing learners with a more realistic, engaging, and decision-driven way to develop the skills required in the field.
Developed for the Association of Food and Drug Officials, this immersive training experience was designed to help inspectors identify risk factors, evaluate operational issues, and make better decisions that support safer food environments. Rather than relying on passive content or routine compliance training, the experience places learners inside realistic restaurant scenarios where they must investigate the environment, assess evidence, interview management, and determine the most important issues affecting food safety.
The result is a training solution that moves beyond information delivery and into performance improvement. Learners are not just told what to look for. They are challenged to think critically, connect observations to consequences, and take action based on the facts at hand. That makes the experience more memorable, more practical, and far more aligned with the demands of actual inspection work.
What makes The Food Detective especially impactful is its purpose. This was not built simply to entertain or impress. It was created to improve inspection consistency, strengthen decision-making, and support better public health outcomes. By transforming complex food safety concepts into an immersive investigative experience, the training helps learners build confidence in identifying problems that might otherwise go unnoticed in high-pressure, fast-moving environments.
Winning a Gold Horizon Interactive Award is an honor, but the real success is what this project represents. The Food Detective Game shows what is possible when strong instructional strategy, immersive design, and meaningful subject matter come together to serve both the learner and the mission.
At Designing Digitally, we believe training should do more than check a box. It should sharpen judgment, improve performance, and create measurable impact. The Food Detective Training Game is a strong example of that philosophy in action, and we are honored to see the work recognized on a national stage. Congrats to our team, ADFO, FDA, and the CDC for this big win!
