ComplianceMate Blog

Why restaurant checklists on a tablet need a wirelessly connected probe

Time is a key ingredient in safe restaurant kitchens. According to a study highlighted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, “Time pressure caused by high volume of business or poor staffing made it hard to do [all] safe food-handling practices.”

Perhaps that’s why another study found, “Just over half of those who cooked food did not usually use a thermometer to check if food was done.”

Any relief is welcome to harried restaurant workers, and that’s where wireless temperature probes fit in.

When you use a wirelessly connected probe, like the one offered by ComplianceMate, it takes an average of five seconds per item on your checklist or temperature check.

Normally, workers put the probe into the food and wait for it to get to the food’s temperature, which can take as long as 20 seconds, and wipe the probe off. But if you’re using a standard thermometer, you’re not done yet. You still have to set the probe down, pick the clipboard up, write the temperature down, put the clipboard back down, and go back to the thermometer. A full line check can take 15 minutes or more every time it gets done – if it gets done at all (remember those studies mentioned above).

By contrast, the wireless probe records the temperatures without human intervention, sending the data back to the computer or personal device, where it is logged automatically. It collapses 30 seconds per checklist item down to 5 seconds per item, just enough time to auto-capture the temperature and wipe off the probe for its next use.

The average restaurant can save upwards of an hour, or more, every day. That’s the equivalent of giving your people an extra hour to do their work.

Plus, the wireless probe captures all items with perfect accuracy, thus virtually eliminating pencil whipping or dry-labbing (falsifying data) because it removes the human from the process of recording the temperature. Thus, wireless probes prompt a much higher confidence in the data because the likelihood of it being faked (or even having the ability to fake it) is next to zero.

That, in turn, delivers high quality information as well as a greater quantity of data to owners and executives looking for ways to improve operations.

Read more about restaurant temperature monitoring, or contact ComplianceMate.

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