Environmental health team leader Ros MacGill said the council also employed a Chinese environmental health officer about eight months ago to work with restaurants.
Standards required in New Zealand were different from those in Asian countries and often the language difficulties meant it could be difficult for restaurant owners to know what was required.
Improvements would not happen overnight, she said.
The new courses in food handling, which began last month, had the same content as New Zealand Qualifications Authority approved courses, but because the participants had difficulty with English literacy, they could not meet authority registration requirements.
Quality Service Management managing director Pieter van de Klundert said despite this, they still meet council requirements for commercial kitchen operators.
The first course attracted about 10 operators, but the interest was increasing and it appeared his organisation would be running the courses monthly to meet the demand.
People interested in attending a course can phone 0800 500-416.
