5 Ways Digital Food Safety is Transforming Restaurants

Over the last couple of years, restaurants have begun adopting wireless sensors and digital checklists to improve food safety. This has marked the beginning of the digital food safety era. However, organizations are still figuring out how digital systems impact their restaurants. What we have seen at TempAlert is that the impact of digital food safety goes far beyond food safety. Here is what we have observed from working with some of the leading restaurant chains on digital food safety initiatives.

Risk Management

No restaurant wants to get Chipotle’d. Last year, Chipotle suffered an outbreak which led to a 23% drop in sales and an $8 billion loss in market value. One year after the incident, we are seeing almost every major restaurant chain evaluating digital food safety programs. These programs are being driven by managers, executives, and board of directors who are looking to manage risk and to avoid the human and financial impact of a food safety incident.

Visibility

The current state of paper-based food safety programs leave restaurants flying blind and unable to proactively manage risk. On the other hand, digital food safety provides transparency across operations so that you can identify at-risk sites. With visibility, you can risk stratify your restaurant sites and take corrective action before an incident occurs. 

Worker Productivity

Restaurant employees spend an average of 20 minutes a day (10 hours a month!), conducting manual checklists. We have found that digital checklists and wireless sensors can reduce this time by up to 75%. Organizations are redirecting time saved with digital food safety to fill more customer orders and to improved customer experience.

Equipment Performance

Monitoring equipment enables facilities teams to proactively maintain equipment and take action before equipment fails. Furthermore, the tracking of the make and model of equipment enables more informed purchasing of new equipment based on the models that are most reliable and achieve the lowest total cost of ownership.

Customer Trust

Customer trust is the central pillar of a successful business. Whether you are an airline forcefully removing a passenger or a restaurant operating without food safety visibility, your customers, and their relationship with you, depend on maintaining trust. To ensure trust, restaurants are investing in digital food safety and taking the opportunity to build trust with both works and customers alike.

As companies think about pursuing digital food safety programs many of the benefits result from a fundamentally new approach. This digital approach transforms organizational visibility, productivity, and agility. And with these changes organizations see benefit far beyond ensuring safety among their consumers. 

If you are interested in the work we are doing to create the future of food safety, I would be happy to share more about what we are working on at TempAlert. You can send me an email at jeremy@tempalert.com.