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Guest Post By Dr. Darin Detwiler, Professor, Author and Renowned Food Safety Icon and Advocate

The 2024 Food Safety Summit in Chicago brought together a rich tapestry of people, concerns, achievements, ideas, and solutions. To me, this event is like a perfect blend of timeless protagonists and antagonists in a story about the Herculean efforts behind food safety.

The range of products and solutions showcased at the Summit reflects the diverse challenges faced by the food industry, each product or service addressing a unique food safety issue. This provided attendees with the opportunity to learn from experts and engage in hands-on experiences.

As an academic, I see this as a significant bonus, especially for those whose training may not be as scientific or technology based as others. I wish more students had exposure to these diverse solutions beyond descriptions and photos online or in books. Seeing the exhibitors and their passion behind their solutions is not only eye-opening but also inspirational. Learning about solutions, such as high-quality food handling gloves, food production line x-rays, or thermal intelligence, highlights the various stages along food’s journey where critical control points can benefit.

Digital solutions, such as Logile’s Thermal Intelligence^TM, allow for real-time (and even remote) monitoring of food products. This innovative technology offers real-time, accurate data ideal for maintaining optimal food storage and handling conditions, thus reducing the risk of foodborne illnesses. The increasing levels of efficiency and transparency inspire and support the optimism and courage we seek in food safety leaders.

The Summit’s exhibitor hall reminded me of the bustling malls and vibrant food courts of the 1980s. Each booth, with its unique offerings, was like a storefront, representing the diverse needs and solutions within the global food landscape. This event is a microcosm of the broader food industry, showcasing a wide spectrum of solutions from the “sorcerers” and “scientists” who identify critical issues and dedicate resources and years to develop effective solutions.

The Summit wasn’t just about technology and products or services; it was a gathering of both freshmen food safety leaders (in the first years of their career, some right out of college) and senior, seasoned experts (the voices, the teachers, the trailblazers). We hugged, made introductions, and took selfies. This, to me, was the food safety culture that is often defined on stage or in writing, but that people sometimes struggle to visualize. Those moments of connection and camaraderie are what I see as the true essence of food safety culture.

The 2024 Food Safety Summit in Chicago was a celebration of the food safety community. From exploring new technologies like thermal intelligence to engaging with both new and seasoned professionals, the Summit reinforced the importance of collaboration and continuous learning in advancing food safety.

About the author
Dr. Darin Detwiler is an award-winning food safety academic, advisor, advocate, and author. For nearly 30 years, he has played a unique role in controlling foodborne illness. After losing his son, Riley, to E.coli in 1993 Jack in the Box outbreak, the Secretary of Agriculture invited Detwiler’s collaboration on consumer education. Detwiler is a professor of food policy and corporate social responsibility at Northeastern University and has served in appointed or other advisory capacities for the USDA, the FDA, NEHA, and more. His research and insights have appeared across industry and media publications, TV, podcasts, his own books “Food Safety: Past, Present, and Predictions” and “Building the Future of Food Safety Technology,” and in the 2023 Netflix documentary “Poisoned: The Dirty Truth About Your Food.”

Food to Go remains a popular option for global retailers, and when implemented effectively, it can provide a sustained competitive advantage and attract more customers. However, many leading retailers still lack efficient methods to consistently monitor the temperatures of both hot and cold food items. This post identifies associated risks of not using advanced technology in temperature monitoring and introduces solutions that address these challenges while delivering a quick return on investment and improving profit.

We will cover how innovative food thermal solutions directly and positively impact the following key areas:

Compliancy
Manual probing
Customers’ wellbeing
Food quality
Food waste
Sustainability
Energy efficiency
Taxation
Insurance
Best practice

Compliancy

Most food thermal technologies do not directly measure the temperature of the food itself. Instead, they measure the air surrounding the food, which can fluctuate for various reasons during the serving period. Factors such as frequent opening of refrigerator or cabinet doors, or accidental failure to close them, can cause traditional devices to provide inaccurate readings. This can lead to misleading temperature indications that may exceed or fall below legally compliant levels, resulting in the need to discard food items. Solutions that leverage thermal inertia gel work differently by simulating the properties of the food itself, including its specific viscosity. This unique approach is less affected by ambient temperature changes and provides accurate temperature readings compared to infrequent manual probing.

Manual probing

Traditionally, manual probing has been used to monitor food temperatures, which has always been a labor-intensive challenge for many retailers. It also represents a cross-contamination risk if probes are not thoroughly sanitized between uses. Reports indicate that a standard store spends approximately two hours per week, and sometimes even more, probing food items. When considering the overall annual impact across businesses with hundreds of stores, these costs alone can approach hundreds of thousands per annum.

Customers’ wellbeing

Innovative thermal inertia technology differs from traditional hard-wired sensors that only provide a single measurement of air temperature near the heating or cooling element of the hot or cold holding asset. Thermal inertia wireless sensors can be installed at the product level throughout an asset, enabling food retailers to thoroughly monitor temperatures where food is located and most vulnerable to compromised safety or quality.

Continuous temperature monitoring technology also helps mitigate risks before they arise. With infrequent probing, up to every four hours, there is a significant period for temperatures to deviate from the required range for ensuring safety and quality. Customers’ wellbeing should be a top priority for any organization, and continuous temperature measurement safeguards against potential risks, providing accurate, reliable and auditable data to ensure compliance with food safety regulations.

Food quality

Inaccurate and infrequent food probing can also adversely impact food quality. By using real-time continuous temperature sensor technology, anomalies such as excessively high temperatures in hot holding can be promptly detected, allowing immediate preventative measures to maintain food quality. Food quality plays a crucial role in delivering positive word-of-mouth and attracting repeat customers, making it an invaluable form of return on investment.

Food waste

Poor quality control and limited access to real-time data can also result in shrinkage, contributing to significant costs associated with food waste. As we approach 2030 and the fulfillment of the United Nations’ (UN’s) Sustainable Development Goals, adopting best practices to minimize waste becomes more critical than ever. Thermal inertia technology uniquely provides immediate insights into any issues that may compromise food quality or safety, minimizing the impact of infrequent manual probing on food wastage. Even a small reduction in food wastage can have a considerable positive impact on profits.

Sustainability

Furthermore, adopting practices that closely monitor and minimize waste make retailers more sustainable as organizations. In an era of conscious consumerism, prioritizing sustainability enhances a brand’s reputation and fosters customer loyalty. Although sustainability is an intangible form of return on investment that is difficult to quantify, it is widely agreed that a supplier that takes actions to maximize sustainability is more desirable than one that does not.

Energy efficiency

Sustainability can manifest in various ways, and sophisticated food safety technology can help enhance an organization’s energy efficiency. Solutions that provide real-time continuous temperature readings enable precise monitoring of hot holding temperatures. This information has shown that hot holding assets may not need to be activated as early as usual before service begins. Continuous monitoring also allows alerts to be generated if a hot holding asset is left on after hours, thereby saving energy and mitigating a safety risk. Moreover, access to a history of real-time temperature checks allows for informed adjustments to the thermostat settings of hot holding cabinets or refrigerators without compromising food safety or quality. Retailers using these capabilities become more adept at optimizing energy usage. Given the escalating cost of energy, even a minor improvement in electricity consumption can lead to significant overall cost reduction.

Taxation

Returning to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the reduction of food waste, many countries have implemented taxation on wasted food. While this practice is not yet universal, it is widely perceived that it may soon become a global initiative. It is prudent to adopt best practices now to minimize waste and safeguard businesses from potential legislative changes in this regard.

Insurance

Another area where significant cost reduction can be achieved is in assessing commercial insurance policies and their levels of liability and resulting premiums. When a consumer reports cases of food poisoning against an insured party, the costs can increase substantially. Conversely, the presence of comprehensive food safety technology and processes can lead to lower insurance costs if evidence is provided to the insurer. Implementing market-leading technology reduces the risk of prosecution and enhances favorability in the eyes of insurers.

Best practice

The best food safety technology mitigates all the identified risks mentioned above, delivering immediate results. This enables adherence to best practices and generates a digital trail of data confirming the effectiveness of all preventive measures in place.

In conclusion, any failure to address these risks can result in irreversible damage to a brand and loss of customers. Leading thermal technology provides indisputable measurements and data to facilitate delivery of the safest and highest-quality food products, promoting competitive advantage and customer confidence.

Content contributed by:
Stephen Bevan, Business Development
Frank Reynolds, Sales

Denise Cole, Product Management
Nathaniel Sheetz, Product Management
Neeta Dash, Product Management

Reduce risk. Protect your customers. Protect your banner. Measure where it matters. We continue our series examining the 4 Quadrants of an effective food safety program (see part 1 and part 2) with a deeper look into Quadrant 2. In our previous post, we described some ways to achieve these goals in food handling and holding environments, and briefly summarized how digital temperature monitoring solutions can be effective. Such solutions combine wireless temperature sensors with powerful software to capture and manage food safety temperatures, and in this post, we will review some of their benefits.

Maintain safe temperatures

The first and perhaps most obvious benefit of digital temperature monitoring systems involves one of the fundamental elements of food safety: ensuring that products are maintained at safe temperatures. Wireless temperature sensors enable an organization to have a complete real-time view of temperatures at the level of the food within an asset, including mobile assets and hot holding units, and even during power outages. When temperatures go outside the configured temperature range for the specified length of time, alerts are automatically generated to notify those best equipped to resolve the problem, and leadership always has the visibility necessary to make informed decisions.

Of course, these automatic real-time temperature readings replace many of the manual temperature checks that previously occupied employees, allowing them to refocus on activities that generate revenue, such as making food, selling food, and providing customer service. Meeting basic food holding safety standards using manual temperature checks, either on paper or digitally, can require at least several hours per day of employee labor, depending on the size of the store and its fresh food offerings. A solution that supports wireless temperature sensors capable of capturing temperatures in both cold and hot holding environments can entirely replace these checks, with the added benefit of reducing costs of associated supplies (like probe thermometers and alcohol wipes).

Avoid food loss and the associated impacts

But these savings are not the only quantifiable benefit. Digital monitoring solutions also help avoid food loss events, reducing shrink and the corresponding labor used to pull, discard, and restock product. After all, food safety is not compromised by temperature alone. Time is a factor as well. When food is found at unsafe temperatures and the history of the product is unclear, the health of the customer cannot be put at risk – and thus waste must be incurred. Conversely, if food is found at unsafe temperatures but the timeline of the cause is clear and within safe parameters, then those products can be saved. By providing early detection of risky conditions, product can be kept safe and shrink prevented.

Save energy and preserve product quality

Digital monitoring systems also create advantages not directly tied to food safety. Two closely linked benefits are energy savings and product quality preservation. Because properly installed sensors relay product-level temperatures, this information can be used to adjust assets to optimal settings that simultaneously keep food safe and avoid wasting energy by overchilling or overheating product, both of which compromise the flavor and texture of food. Energy savings can be particularly substantial when sensors reveal an empty hot holding asset left on overnight – a surprisingly common occurrence that also poses a safety risk.

Gain visibility into asset performance

A related benefit is visibility of asset performance. Clear and easily accessible temperature records help indicate whether a temperature deviation is due to asset malfunction, as opposed to exterior forces (stocking levels, air flow, etc.) that can be easily corrected without a costly service call. Graphic portrayals of equipment performance also help management assess the strengths and weaknesses of specific assets and guide future purchases.

Conclusion

These are a few of the most significant benefits gained by implementing a digital temperature monitoring system. Simply put, the best monitoring enables the best management and the most efficient operations, all of which strengthen the bottom line. Now, having explored these advantages over the course of two posts, the next post in this series will wrap up the first two food safety quadrants and show how a fully integrated digital solution supports cooking, cooling, handling, receiving and more, and uses process guidance and corrective actions to drive food safety success.

Logile will be at the International Association for Food Protection (IAFP) 2023 Annual Meeting July 16-19 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada – find us at Booth 556 with our partner BluLine Solutions LLC if you are attending!