Everyone loves good food and great company, so heading for a cafe or restaurant is an ideal way to share a memorable meal with our friends and family. But if you’re preparing someone’s food, there’s more than just cooking involved. Strict hygiene standards have to be followed to make sure that food can be safely eaten by your patrons.
Food safety management systems are practices that help catering providers and restaurants to provide the safest and highest-quality food possible. Many restaurants are turning to digital food safety systems over physical records. But what is digital food safety management?
An overview of food safety management
Food safety management, whether digital or paper-based, encompasses a set of tasks and rules designed to make food as safe as possible. Any lapses in food safety could endanger lives and result in legal punishment.
Local and national authorities, such as the Food Safety and Inspection Service in the US, exist to maintain good food safety standards and issue recognized safety ratings. These hygiene ratings help to give customers peace of mind when coming to your restaurant. Internationally, catering safety standards are governed by the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) guidelines.
Food safety contains a lot of daily tasks to provide the highest safety standards. Products like dairy, meat and poultry need to be correctly stored and prepared. Regular temperature checks must be taken for fridges and freezers. Dates must be clearly labeled on opened foodstuffs so that nothing is used once its dates have expired.
Digital or paper-based food safety management?
A food safety management system can be either digital or paper-based, and each method has different uses. Paper-based systems are likely used by smaller catering businesses and can be fairly simple. Staff may record the temperature of fridges and other storage facilities in dedicated books or files, while managing product dates may include writing a label and placing it on the food.
Digital systems are becoming more prevalent across the globe, especially in larger-scale catering operations such as fast-food restaurants and chains. These advanced systems can take temperatures automatically or store important food safety data in a digital or cloud format. Digital systems can be accessed remotely by managers, allowing them to maintain high food safety standards without being physically present in the restaurant.
Both types of food safety management have pros and cons, so let’s dive into those below.
Pros and Cons of paper-based food safety management
Pros:
- Good for small-scale businesses: Paper-based systems suit catering services that have simple needs, such as small cafes or coffee shops located within larger stores. These operations usually have just a few employees and less demanding food safety requirements.
- Guidance: Many local or national food safety authorities can offer templates for paper-based food safety systems that any catering company can download and use.
Cons:
- Susceptible to errors: Paper-based systems can suffer from simple human errors or miscommunication. Someone’s handwriting might not be legible enough during inspections, or the temperature record folder could have been innocently misplaced.
- Time-consuming: Paper-based systems can soak up a lot of time and prevent staff from serving customers during busy periods.
- Complicated records: Because food safety is so important, there can sometimes be an overwhelming amount of paperwork involved such as licenses, checklists, dates, and temperature data. All this information needs to be stored somewhere without being lost.
- Training time: To function properly, every one of your workers needs to be fully informed of the correct food safety procedures to follow and how to record things. This can cost time and money.
Pros and Cons of digital food safety management
Pros:
- Ideal for all sizes of business: While larger businesses such as restaurant chains and fast-food outlets will enjoy the greatest benefits from utilizing a digital food safety management system, smaller outfits can also use these services. Some providers offer specialized HACCP plans that can be customized to suit smaller businesses.
- Automated data: Digital systems can be advanced enough to automatically record crucial data such as temperatures and food dates, helping to eliminate errors.
- Remote access: Digital systems can be accessed remotely by managers in real-time to give greater control even if they aren’t on the premises, helping to ensure that nothing is missed. These systems can even be accessed on mobile devices.
- Access to templates: Some digital food safety services can provide detailed templates for checklists, license applications, and other records. These can be tailored depending on the needs of your particular business.
- Customized alerts: With some digital food safety systems, you can set alerts through a dedicated app or have them sent to your phone. These could be reminders to check some dates or an alert informing you of your next food safety inspection.
- Simple storage: The advantage of having one system taking care of everything is that all the information you need is stored in one easily accessible location, such as cloud storage or an online account. This makes it easy to call up the relevant documents during inspections etc.
- Online training: Many digital food management services offer access to certified courses and training that can help you get your employees up to speed with food safety regulations quickly and easily.
Cons:
- Data security: Any online system can be threatened by potential data theft or tampering. Ensuring consistent security and strong passwords are vital for protecting against this.
- Financial cost: Digital systems are more expensive than paper-based approaches, which may be an issue for some smaller businesses that won’t necessarily be able to take advantage of the full benefits of a digital system.
- Transferring data: If you decide to switch to a different digital food safety system, there may be some issues transferring your previous records to the new system. This isn’t an issue with paper-based systems as long as they are kept safely.
Conclusion
For many restaurants and catering companies, a digital food safety system will create a simple, easy-to-use tool that enables them to keep track of all the relevant food safety data and regulations. This helps free up their staff to provide good food and great service to customers.
Whether you’re a small coffee shop or large restaurant chain, contact FoodDocs today to find the perfect HACCP plan to serve you and your customers!
Author Bio: Violetta Njunina is the Head of Sales at FoodDocs and is an experienced restaurant and event manager with a demonstrated history of working in the food & beverages industry.
