Recap: Total Food Service Virtual Breakfast Session
I recently had the privilege of guesting on Total Food Service’s Virtual Breakfast Session webinar series with fellow guests Julio Garcia, Bob Parrinello, and Christian Feglia. We had a fantastic panel discussion tackling the critical components of elevating food safety inside of restaurants by fostering a culture of accountability and adopting technology that supports the mission of delivering quality food to satisfied customers.
Christian brought great perspective from the operator side of the equation, sharing how he holds extra monthly food safety meetings with his food service team at the New York Historical Society. Employees who attend the huddle are paid for a five-hour shift and given a great meal prepared by Chef Ali Loukzada, the Executive Chef of Storico, the restaurant located in the landmark New York Historical Society Building. The extra training and knowledge sharing that takes place during Christian’s huddles bolsters the culture of service, accountability, and quality that the team is known to deliver.
Bob shared his deep expertise as a public health inspector, adjunct instructor, and owner of a food safety training and certification company. He stressed the importance of selecting restaurant staff and managers who are certified, understand how to integrate food safety between front and back of house, and have enough industry experience to know how to handle food well and cook it properly. Bob also highlighted the critical nature of selecting approved, reputable suppliers that won’t introduce contamination into a restaurant’s supply chain before the food even arrives at the store. He advised operators to remember to take a step back during their days to observe their staff and verify if the requirements and SOPs hanging up on the wall are actually being followed and executed.
Recommended by LinkedIn
As the go-to man for all things produce, Julio emphasized the value and gravity of supplier compliance and transparent traceability. Operators should not accept a shipper that doesn’t comply with required food safety standards. Suppliers, shippers, and operators need to demonstrate due diligence in not breaking the cold chain. An eye-check won’t tell you whether your spinach has salmonella, so it’s important to only buy from certified suppliers. Julio also mentioned the risk of cross contamination, citing the best practice of selecting separate suppliers for dairy, produce, and meat. Extra expense that promotes better food safety is worth it to operators who want peace of mind when it comes to the food they’re serving to customers.
I was able to speak about the ways SmartSense automates much of the food safety operations inside restaurants. Sensing-as-a-Service provides continuous asset monitoring to keep track of key food safety measurements for humidity, gas, energy consumption, and temperature. However, the sensing capabilities are only the start. The critical components included in Sensing-as-a-Service for restaurants are the digitized workflows and checklists that enable a culture of safety and quality.
Prescriptive workflows that give the kitchen staff in-the-moment instructions for flow-of-food, heating and cooling periods, and corrective actions ensure that no one has to go check page 152 in the manual to confirm what they should do next. Our food probe automates temperature recording while lighting up green or red to let the operator know instantly whether the food is at the correct temperature or not. Ease of use for adoption and training is critical so that restaurant employees have more time to spend serving customers, knowing that the workflows and sensors are working for them. When I speak with restaurant workers, they always express how they want to do the right thing when it comes to food safety. Empowering them — even the new or temporary employees — with the right tools to do their job at a high level and deliver the best experience to customers is an essential part of operating a successful restaurant.
I’m grateful for the opportunity to take part in this session and glean from the mutual learning experience provided by the experts on the panel. Food safety is a crucial discipline that we must always work to improve as we ensure the safety of our customers and communities. Sessions like these help us improve best practices and bring greater efficiency to the processes that maintain the quality and safety of our food.