Technology has helped the food industry to keep up with the demand for food. Similarly, digital solutions can be leveraged in the overall effort to ensure the safety of the food we eat. This blog post provides a brief overview of how (and which) digital technologies can support essential food safety practices. We will also find out why people do not opt for this and are hesitant in their decisions for digital transformation.
What is food safety?
Food safety refers to routines in the preparation, handling, and storage of food meant to prevent foodborne illness and injury. Between time and temperature controls, HACCP and other requirements, and of course, certifications and internal standards, the food industry implement several safety processes. An important thing to note is that whether it’s a restaurant, grocery store, manufacturer, or foodservice operator, chances are you’ll see the same thing: Employees using pen and paper checklists, forms, and logbooks to manage their food safety operations. Even with advancements in technology, food safety operations are still managed manually, which make them error-prone, time-consuming, and in some cases, even expensive. Let us not forget the food-borne diseases that errors bring, and so on.
To achieve that quality assurance (QA) and food safety, production managers and auditors face problems to follow correctly all the rules and complex regulations related to food safety. They walk through the facility several times a day with a clipboard in hand, reviewing a list of safety and quality measures. Only after that, they manually log data into an Excel or other spreadsheet, run analysis, write reports, and file the results with industry partners and government regulators. But hey! What if digitalization does all for them in the majority? This would improve food safety operations significantly.
What is food safety digitalization
Digitalization is the process of leveraging digital technology to improve business processes. The results of this process are called digital transformation. From farm to factory to fork, food products may encounter any number of health hazards during their journey through the supply chain. Safe food handling practices and procedures are thus, implemented at every stage of the food production life cycle in order to curb these risks and prevent harm to consumers. Digital technologies make everything easier, under control, and are permitting the collection of an unprecedented amount of data from a virtually unlimited number of points along and around the food chain. The purpose of digitalization is to enable automation, increase data quality, as well as collect and structure all that data.
HOW DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS CAN HELP IMPROVE FOOD SAFETY EFFORTS
IoT (Internet of Things), software, platforms, mobile apps, digital auditing tools, digital product labelling, blockchain technologies, and other digital technology solutions offer significant advantages over traditional methods of collecting and maintaining a wide range of data. These also enable the identification of potential safety concerns with ease. The outcome of digitalization is higher process efficiency, lower transaction costs and better control of business operations, both for the individual company and the network of associated businesses.
WHY AND HOW TO DEAL WITH FOOD SAFETY DIGITALIZATION
Most organizations or people hesitate on deciding to transform into the use of digital operation because they do not know what it is, how to deal with it, and what it brings. The transition to digitalization is not difficult at all if you tackle things properly. However, people still don’t decide on going for this change because of fear, and lack of time, thinking that new education and additional costs are needed. But that is not true with the right digital solution and help.
And here, we, digital food safety specialists, make our move. Morefromfood digital system is fully customizable. This means there is no need for a change in processes, certifications, regulations, standardization or anything like that because the digital system adapts to you. We make a personalized platform to suit your needs. The only thing workers need to do is learn how to use the mobile-friendly app and platform, which we guarantee is easy to use because all the analysis, temperature monitoring, spreadsheets, notifications, and so on are done by automation.
HOW MOREFROMFOOD IS CONTRIBUTING NEW DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES TO MODERN FOOD SAFETY EFFORTS
Not long ago, MoreFromFood helped to bring progress with hazard analysis and critical control point (HACCP) practices in the food industry with the introduction of its new eHACCP and digital audit system. It was founded on a cloud-based HACCP platform developed with joint efforts with IT company Dotcom and Italian university.
We offer you a complete digital solution and customer help service from the start and after, with the implementation of the system and all probes needed in the package. We know exactly what devices are the most effective and how to set them.
BENEFITS OF GOING DIGITAL
Improving Performance – Employees know what they need to do and when – whilst giving you complete visibility and insight with real-time analysis and reporting.
Cost reduction – Reduction of administrative costs can be up to 80%, travel costs up to 60%, whilst consulting costs up to 40%. It also reduces costs for print and paper, at the same time saving the planet.
Time savings – With managing, planning, and tracking all safety processes in one central location that are automated, work becomes more effective. Thus, it enables the optimal allocation of auditing resources, resulting in significant time savings.
And many more… which we will discuss some other time. Today, it is important to be aware that sustainable food production requires digitalization – a proven fact, especially shown in these hard Covid times.
We hope we answered many of your ambiguities and indecision with transformation.
START WITH FOOD SAFETY DIGITALIZATION TODAY
Put your business in expert hands and gain back valuable time. Trust Morefromfood experts do the hard work.
