Importance of Maintaining temperature ranges
Keeping food at the right temperature is critical in restaurant operations and that’s why refrigerator and freezer failures can be devastating to a restaurant. If either fall out of temperature range for too long, you risk losing inventory, as well as, the potential sales lost until inventory can be replaced.
To protect against equipment failures, restaurant owners and operators employ checklists to monitor freezers and refrigerators and to ensure they are operating within correct temperature ranges. Using a log to track temperature readings and a checklist to drive the process will catch most issues and save inventory. However, gaps in those processes still occur due to human error.
Food waste
Food waste is a serious problem for restaurants, with about 15% of restaurant food getting wasted. Imagine reducing 15% of the costs in your restaurant! On the flip side, imagine losing all of your food with a fridge or freezer going out. Catastrophe! We understand that all too well since our story started after our founder lost all of his inventory due to a faulty freezer unit.
Jolt’s Story
On New Year’s Day 2010, Josh Bird (Jolt’s CEO and Founder) faced his biggest challenge yet as a restaurant owner: a broken freezer unit with over $10,000 of food stock ruined in just a few hours. Instead of spending the holiday evening with his family, he overpaid a technician to fix the broken unit.
This was the last straw in a series of hurdles he experienced while trying to run a small business. Josh knew other franchisees—especially restaurant groups and multi-location owners—were experiencing the same problems he faced.
So, Josh got to work creating software that could integrate with sensors to monitor refrigerator and freezer temperature as well as improve a whole host of other restaurant back of house problems. The product he created aimed to improve employee accountability, deliver digital food safety compliance, and drive employee performance.
How Sensors Can Protect Your Inventory
Sensors can be placed in refrigerators, freezers, or anywhere else you want to constantly monitor temperature or humidity ranges and can provide peace of mind by:
- Monitoring sensitive food environments
- Giving real-time notifications if temperatures fall out of range
- Ensuring HACCP compliant tracking and logs
- Helping pass food safety inspections without stress
- Improving food safety scores
Because sensors can be set up to notify you if anything dips out of the range you set, you can be aware of potential problems before food enters dangerous temperature zones, giving you the alert you need to save food and money. To learn more about sensors click here.