Maybe you’re considering a digital food safety system after hearing promising reviews from others in your industry, but aren’t totally convinced. Here’s a look at some challenges you can expect to continue facing if you stick with pen and paper.
Delivering on your brand promise
When your customers walk into any of your store’s locations, they expect a consistent experience. This means you need to deliver and uphold the brand promise they’ve come to know. For example, that food ordered will taste the same no matter the location, or that when they walk into your store, it will be clean and orderly the same way previously visited locations had been.
Without a digital solution, understanding the state and consistency of operations in multiple locations is nearly impossible. Unless multiple stores can be visited per day, thoroughly understanding how your locations are performing isn’t likely.
Food safety software can help to uphold this promise with real-time views into food safety completion and operational compliance at every location. Staying on top of these brand standards is imperative to consistent and high-quality customer experience, but isn’t realistic when using disparate paper logs.
A true pulse on employee activity
You rely on and trust your employees, but when food safety is on the line, well-documented compliance records are necessary. Without a digital system, you rely on paper logs filled out by employees. If a team member forgets to complete these logs, it’s easy for them to pencil whip or falsely document the day and time those food safety checks were completed.
A digital system eliminates this possibility, with real-time alerts sent to stakeholders when food safety tasks aren’t completed. This way, any compliance oversights can be caught immediately. This will be especially crucial if your state or local municipality requires compliance records during inspections.
Employee engagement and motivation
Another reason that operators experience errors with paper logs is that the process is a painful and cumbersome task to complete accurately. It also takes time out of the store manager’s day to ensure documentation is complete and compliant.
On the flip side, you’ll find that managers are actually excited to complete these tasks once transferred to a digital solution. It’s an interface they’re more familiar with, which makes mundane food safety tasks more engaging. It also makes the training process for employees who are new to food safety more interactive and welcoming.
Stressful inspection process
Unfortunately, there are many ways that physical food safety logs can lead to a failed inspection. Infractions as small as illegible writing, a missed letter or word, or incorrect ink color can mean a failing grade, leading to real ramifications for your brand.
Digital systems automatically transform all documented temperatures into inspection-compliant reports. And this data is ready and up-to-date anytime, so you’ll be prepared for surprise inspections, too. Our customers have seen their failed inspections reduced by 30% after using our digital food safety system.
Eventually, food safety will become fully digitized, as have most front of house operational systems. Until this becomes the norm, you can stay ahead of the curve by adopting digital food safety in your operation today.