Monika – Food Safety in Foodservice Kitchens
Food safety is imperative within foodservice kitchens, and central to this is ensuring that food is stored, cooked, and served at the correct temperature. Unsafe food leads to poor quality and dissatisfied customers at best, and at worst can cause sickness and even death.
Proper Storage
Even before the cooking process begins, it is important to ensure food is correctly stored. Different food types require specific temperature for optimum hygiene and quality-assurance;
Chilled Food: +5C
Dairy: +2C – +5C
Fresh Meat: -2C – +2C
Fresh Fish: -1C – +1C
Frozen Products: -18C or lower
With such minimal margins, operators need reliable temperature monitoring equipment, so they can be confident in result accuracy. Monika’s discreet sensors cleverly simulate the temperature of perishable food, rather than simply recording the air temperature inside refrigerators, freezers, and cold rooms. This avoids misleading fluctuation records from staff opening and closing doors, for a more accurate reading.
Malfunctions and Wastage
With the risk of malfunctioning equipment comes the possibility of losing thousands of pounds worth of stock. If a unit temperature moves outside a pre-determined safe range, Monika’s smart cloud-connected system can send alerts to team members. Staff can then act quickly to relocate food before it spoils. This early warning system can highlight faulty equipment, enabling managers to address issues before they become expensive repairs – or help managers make informed decisions about when to invest in new equipment.
Consistency
In a busy commercial kitchen, manual hygiene checks can often be overlooked. Monika’s Team Management capabilities can be programmed to send task reminders, such as regular surface wipe downs, temperature probes, and washing hands. Managers can then view which tasks have been completed, when, and by whom. The Monika system can be accessed via any laptop, desktop, mobile, or Monika’s handheld PA device, including while off-site – making it ideal for multi-site managers.
