Since the emergence of COVID-19, priorities in food prep areas have shifted. Even greater emphasis has been placed on food safety, labor costs and food waste—three items that were already at the top of most operators’ lists.  

With many stay-at-home orders and advisories remaining in place across the country, consumers look for ways to bring more grab & go, prepared, and other convenience foods home to serve their families. But between working from home, online learning for kids, and all the other responsibilities that are challenging families during this pandemic, food safety is the last thing people want to worry about.

With a steady demand for fresh produce and prepackaged, ready to eat foods, store operators are looking at smarter strategies to maintain food safety without increasing human contact, using labor more effectively and ensuring that wasted product is kept to a minimum.

Temp Monitoring Made Easy

Even though it is unlikely for someone to get a virus through food or food packaging (according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention), it is essential that ready to eat and prepackaged foods are safely handled and refrigerated to their recommended temperatures to prevent foodborne illness. Monitoring temperatures in kitchens, meat and deli counters, and produce departments has always been tedious and sometimes ineffective as staff members manually checked and recorded temperatures in a handwritten log.

With new technology though, the process has improved greatly, helping many operators avoid costly run-ins with health inspectors. Investing in technology designed to increase efficiencies and improve deli, bakery, produce, and other food prep area practices is one way to take the worry from operators who are trying to keep pace with the increased demands facing their stores, their workers, and their customers.

One such system is DayMark Safety Systems’ customizable temperature monitoring solution, powered by JRI. The system is a reliable, HACCP-compliant solution that is easy to use and accurate, saving operators time and money by eliminating the need for manual fridge and freezer temperature monitoring, food check monitoring, hand-recorded logs, and paper audits.

DayMark’s temperature monitoring sensors, hot and cold food temperature probes, and the user-friendly online dashboard and kitchen application together offer paper-free recording and logging of all required food safety data. In addition, around-the-clock alerts help identify potential equipment failures in real time, and the utilization of LoRa technology allows for long range, disruption-free communication between devices.

The company even offers live online demos that allow users to learn more about these and other unique features, and includes a question and answer session on how the system can enhance food service establishments.

Operators should be able to worry less about compliance and focus more on delivering customer satisfaction. Utilizing a trustworthy temperature monitoring solution allows for operators to save time and money thanks to more efficient processes.