Just as the smartphone has evolved far beyond that rotary-dial, landline phone on the kitchen wall, the 21st century convenience store is quickly and broadly redefining the shopping and dining experience. No longer positioned as the first choice for fuel pumps or a smorgasbord of salty snacks, the c-store has become a viable outlet for
We used to be hunter-gatherers, but now we’ve become a shopper-tracker society. We can track most anything these days: package shipments and marathon runners, as well as the geo-location of ships, trains and airplanes on the screens of our mobile phones. We can even see when our ride service car is about to turn the
No restaurant or business intends for a foodborne illness to happen, but unfortunately today, they’re very prevalent. Major food distributors and businesses alike cringe when they hear their products are responsible for an outbreak. Take the recent FDA report on a farm linked to a major egg recall. A farm in North Carolina linked to
A news story can be unnerving. A Cleveland, Ohio Fertility Clinic experienced an unexpected temperature fluctuation in the storage bank when a refrigerated storage unit and a sensor failed, potentially damaging eggs and embryos. Here in the freezer-full food business (storage, preparation and delivery), even the advanced technology involving IoT Food Safety could have performance
We should probably keep a checklist to keep up with all our checklists. In his 2011 book The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right (Picador Press), author Atul Gawande lays out the case for checklists: “the volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits
How to Create Efficiency, Exactness and Economies of scale Driven by Food Safety legislation, but equally concerned with the consumer experience and preserving brand value, Food Safety Monitoring (FSM) has evolved into a sophisticated tool for restaurants and retail outlets. FSM ensures that potentially hazardous ingredients are identified and eliminated from products and meals, that
The Business Benefits of adopting Mobile IoT Solutions The Internet of Things (IoT) is no longer in the realm of science fiction; it’s as pervasive as the smartphone and the selfie stick. As reported in CIO, the research firm Gartner predicts there will be nearly 20 billion devices connected to the IoT by 2020. Think of the IoT in terms
76% of restaurateurs are looking for labor management tools in their restaurant POS software. – NRA The restaurant POS industry has been rapidly changing since its inception into the foodservice workplace. While 2017 brought many innovative products and services, 2018 promises to build off that with even more disruption. While self-service kiosks have continued to
While companies such as Amazon begin dabbling in the produce delivery market, or Hannaford participating in the ‘To-Go’ curbside pick-up program, temperature control best practices have become increasingly more vital. As consumer trends and tastes become more diverse, so do potential food safety issues. Newer trends such as gardens in restaurants, demand for locally sourced
One of the benefits of the RFID tag is that it requires the employee to go to the location of the tag to interrogate the temperature data from the tag. Why is RFID capability important for Food Safety? RFID capability can be used for both temperature and location measurements. With respect to location measurements, the RFID sensors,
While being inspected, it’s prudent to follow the inspector so you can see any violations first-hand. If you’re a restaurant owner, the last thing you want to see is the health inspector walking through your front door. Much like Godzilla exiting the waters to destroy New York City, I imagine it’s a harrowing sight. Contrary
C-stores are beginning to seek alternatives from the slimmer margins of gas and cigarettes. In 2016, the industry saw a 9.2% drop in fuel sale. Ah, convenience stores, pleasantly reeking of greasy hotdogs, gasoline, and cigarette fumes from the miserable 17-year old cashier outside neglecting the line. That’s generally the perception, right? Well, not anymore!