Why Temperature Is So Important In Food Storage

The bacteria that cause foodborne illness, called pathogenic bacteria, can grow rapidly in food that’s above 40 ⁰F and can double in number in little as 20 minutes. Pathogenic bacteria doesn’t affect food’s odor, taste, or appearance, so you can’t tell it’s there. As a safety precaution, the USDA suggests not consuming meat that has been left above 40⁰F for more than two hours. This not only applies to raw food, but cooked food as well.

This is another example of where remote temperature monitoring is so important. What if your refrigerator’s not working right? Sure, it may seem like it’s okay, but maybe the temperature controller’s not working right, or maybe it’s the compressor. You may have set it to store food below 40⁰F, but maybe that’s not the actual temperature. What if we were talking about a restaurant walk-in refrigerator in the middle of the night? How would you know? Having a monitoring system that not only tells you what the actual temperature is, but also send you an alert would be crucial in a) making sure none of your restaurant patrons get sick and b) ensuring you don’t have to throw away hundreds of dollars worth of food because of poor refrigeration.

More information about proper food refrigeration can be found on the USDA’s website here and here.