The Importance Behind Tracking Food Temperature

What is Food Temperature Tracking?

Food temperature tracking is the method of consistent temperature monitoring in order to ascertain if a food product is potentially contaminated by bacteria and is therefore unsafe for consumption.

If food is not held at the appropriate temperature, pathogenic bacteria may reproduce rapidly, greatly increasing the risk of foodborne illness and safety compliance violations.

Thankfully, there are methods that food industry professionals can undertake to decrease the proliferation and transmission of bacteria, including strict and consistent tracking of food temperature.

Mitigating bacterial growth through carefully monitoring your food's temperature is an effective way to protect customers from foodborne illnesses.

Bacteria grow most rapidly in the danger zone, which ranges between 40-140 degrees Fahrenheit. In this zone, bacteria doubles in number in as quickly as 20 minutes.

Regardless if you are cooking, preparing, or holding food, food industry professionals must vigilantly track temperatures in order to avoid the danger zone and provide the safest food products possible.

How Does it Help?

Tracking and maintaining proper food temperatures is essential for your business to provide the highest quality and safest products possible.

Continuous monitoring allows for accurate time and temperature controls. In turn, food industry professionals can decrease food outbreaks, food waste, and other improper monitoring consequences.

Shockingly, less than 5% of companies in the hospitality and restaurant industries use automated temperature sensors. There are four key reasons to utilize wireless sensors for continuous temperature monitoring- food safety improvement, product loss reduction, human error reduction, and staff notification of equipment failure and downtime reduction.

Food industry professionals can reduce food waste and product loss by properly monitoring their temperatures. Food professionals can use digital monitoring to keep an eye on their equipment and products around the clock, and from wherever they are located.

Digital monitoring alerts for equipment failures that occur outside of working hours, including between shifts or overnight. Digital monitors will send real-time alerts to staff for any breach in the system, allowing staff to undertake the appropriate corrective actions.

Through the implementation of a digital monitoring system, restaurants can eliminate expensive food waste and income loss.

Many common human errors can be eliminated through digital monitoring. Mistakes happen, perhaps a staff member forgot to check the temperature of the walk-in fridge, an employee incorrectly took food temperatures, or a customer inadvertently left the walk-in cooler door open.

Though not intentional, these mistakes can be catastrophic, both in terms of expensive product waste and dangerous foodborne illness.

Digital monitoring can alert staff to equipment failure and reduce downtime. Failure to immediately notice an equipment failure can slow down service time and limit what menu items will be available to customers.

For example, an employee could not notice a malfunctioning walk-in cooler and as a result, it goes unnoticed overnight.

After this food has spent so much time in the danger zone it could cause serious foodborne illness. Now the product must be disposed of. As a result, there may be food shortages for the next upcoming shifts.

Automated wireless sensors that alert food professionals in real-time allow rapid corrective action and reduced or avoided downtime. With the proper digital monitoring system, food industry professionals can safely save product and money while increasing the safety and satisfaction of their customers.

Summarized benefits of a good temperature monitoring system-

• Control and monitor food shelf life
• Swift awareness of refrigeration or storage malfunctions
• Improve food safety skills among food industry professionals
• Less food waste
• Protect customers against food outbreaks and decrease foodborne illness transmission
• Produce the best results possible during health inspections and internal quality checks
• Produce safer and better quality food

Improper Tracking and Your Bottom-line

Although the United State's food supply is one of the safest in the world, the CDC estimates that each year roughly 48 million people, or roughly 1 in 6 Americans, get sick as a result of foodborne diseases.

Of these infected people, 128,000 people are hospitalized and 3,000 people will die. These illnesses and deaths are especially tragic because they are largely the fault of preventable food safety mistakes.

A food outbreak occurs when two or more people get the same illness from the same contaminated source. When a food outbreak is suspected, various food safety administrations step in to investigate and attempt to mitigate the spread of the outbreak.

Technology has vastly improved the ability to find, investigate, and identify the sources of foodborne and take corrective action. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) provides an updated list of recent foodborne illness outbreaks for consumer reference.

When so many foods are coming from the same sources, it is especially important to maintain a proper temperature monitoring system throughout the food supply chain.

A foodborne illness outbreak could bring massive financial consequences to your business via lawsuits, fines, penalties, and even permanent closure of your business. If food industry professionals maintain a proper temperature monitoring system, many major violations and foodborne illness outbreaks could be prevented.

Key Takeaways

• Food temperature tracking is the method of consistent temperature monitoring in order to ascertain if a food product is potentially contaminated by bacteria and is therefore unsafe for consumption
• Food temperature monitoring systems decrease food wastefulness, prevent food outbreaks, and increase overall business efficiency and profitability
• A proper temperature monitoring system will protect your customers and optimize the shelf life of your products.
• Less than 5% of companies in the hospitality and restaurant industries use automated temperature sensors
• Continuous monitoring allows for accurate time and temperature controls. In turn, food industry professionals can decrease food outbreaks, food waste, and other improper monitoring consequences
• Although the United State's food supply is one of the safest in the world, the CDC estimates that each year roughly 48 million people, or roughly 1 in 6 Americans, get sick as a result of foodborne diseases. Of these infected people, 128,000 people are hospitalized and 3,000 people will die
• If food industry professionals maintain a proper temperature monitoring system, many major violations and foodborne illness outbreaks could be prevented.