How The Hygeian System Can Help You Improve Restaurant Profitability

As businesses reopen and learn to cope with Covid-19, restaurants are having to manage with less staff, high absenteeism, and an inflationary economy. Restauranteurs who are determined to survive and thrive in this new economy are turning to the latest technology to reduce their production costs and improve their labour efficiency. The Hygeian Food Management System is a modern IoT (Internet of Things) solution that, can play a major role in substantially improving the bottom line for food businesses.

Discover how …

Numerous publications report that around 30% of the produce purchased by food businesses in developed countries never gets eaten and ends up being thrown out. The wastage figures for Australia are the same. The reasons are:

• Poor cold chain management resulting in rejection of received produce and food.
• Breakdown of refrigeration.
• Incorrect storage of chilled foods that go off before they are used.
• Incorrect storage of frozen foods resulting in deterioration of the food quality.
• Purchasing too much stock so some of it passes its expiry date, prior to being used.
• Potentially hazardous foods being left in the 5-60^oC danger zone for too long, prior to being used.
• Incorrect preparation and cooking.
• Incomplete consumption of served food.

In each of these cases, better management of the processes within the food business and knowing the food temperature has been correctly maintained at each stage of its journey from the farm to the plate can help you reduce waste.

Most wasted food goes to landfill where it breaks down anaerobically. The bacteria decomposing the waste release methane which is 25 times more potent than CO₂ in trapping heat in the atmosphere.  Energy waste, due to refrigerator and freezer doors being left open, also produces excess CO₂.  Anything that can be done to reduce methane and CO₂ will ultimately benefit the climate.

When produce is wasted, the resources such as land and water needed to grow it are also wasted. If 30% of the food grown in Australia gets wasted, then it stands to reason that 30% of the resources required in Australia to grow that food also get wasted. The government has recently committed to reducing food waste by 50% by 2030. From an environmental point of view, responsible food businesses must find ways to reduce food waste.

There can be a substantial payoff for food businesses that do take action to reduce their food waste and improve their operating efficiency. See the table below which shows how much you can potentially improve your profitability based upon the changes you make (assuming that the costs of running your business are similar).

How can the Hygeian System help reduce food and energy wastage?

• Manually recording food temperatures twice per day assumes that the temperature never changes. We have viewed hundreds of refrigeration temperature trends and have yet to see any refrigerator or freezer that maintains a steady temperature over a prolonged period. Our trend charts show very clearly that the temperature varies continually and that the defrost cycles create positive spikes in the food temperature usually every 4 or 6 hours. The Hygeian System is wireless and can be deployed in a few minutes. It records each temperature once per minute and saves that data immediately to the cloud. The temperature dashboard displays and trends the live data.
• If a temperature goes out of spec for a user-adjustable period, alarm messages are immediately disseminated to those that need to know. If the problem is a breakdown in refrigeration or a power failure, there will be enough time to save the stock by moving it.

• The trending system makes it easy to analyse the average temperature over longer periods and to adjust the refrigeration system to optimise energy usage.
• One of the major costs to a food business can be the electricity to run their refrigeration. Doors left open will result in refrigeration temperatures rising and energy being wasted. The Hygeian System will alert restaurant management to these problems so staff can be made aware of this cost to the business and retrained on minimising energy usage.
• The Hygeian System allows you to create checklists and schedules those checks to be carried out at the appropriate times. The checklists can include checking on the use-by dates of foods to ensure that they are consumed before expiry.

Example of a Simple Cleaning Checklist for a Dining Room

Just How much Can You Expect to Save?

The Hygeian system provides visibility of the data, allowing you to improve the way you manage your food handing and labour. Labour is assumed to be 30% of revenue. The Cost of food is assumed to be 30% of revenue. The costs of manual recording temperatures may vary depending upon the time taken for each recording and the wages of the people performing the associated activities. Your actual costs may vary, leading to a different result. No savings will be achieved without you acting after evaluating the data provided by the system. Other factors such as reduction in insurance claims, reduction in insurance premiums and lower food safety audit costs could result from better management as well.

Here is a summary of some of the benefits your food business could experience, in addition to the savings through your reduction of food and energy wastage, plus the more efficient utilisation of your labour.

• Accurate and Complete Records:
  • Your records are complete, time stamped, accurate and meet international food safety standards.
  • The temperature history of your foods is accurately known, so informed decisions can be made on food safety.
  • Food Safety Audits become stress free, less frequent, and shorter.
    
    
• Alerts by Email and or SMS:
  • All relevant personnel can be advised immediately.
  • Monthly alarm SMS messages allowance included in subscription.
    
    
• Easy to Deploy:
  • The preconfigured system can be quickly deployed and adjusted without any special knowledge of the sophisticated technology behind its operation.
  • The 4G connection operates independently of your own networks.
  • Our agents and our staff provide free expert advice on deployment.
  • There is no interruption to your work while the system is deployed.
    
    
• Guides your Team Members:
  • Timed notifications, checklists and training material are issued automatically to your staff at the right time.
  • Charts show you how well they are performing, thus improving efficiency.
    
    
• Reliable Cloud Based System:
  • Built using the Microsoft Azure Platform for ultimate speed and reliability.
  • Your system is securely backed up.
  • Your records are available anytime you need them.
  • Authorized staff members can view the data they are permitted to access.
    
    
• Fully Maintained by Hygeian:
  • Perpetual warranty on sensors.
  • Hygeian automatically monitors your system to keep it running efficiently.
  • Hygeian will replace your wireless temperature sensors annually, saving you time and money in battery replacement and ensuring calibration compliance.
    
    
• Reliable Technology:
  • The system notifies Hygeian:
    • if a transmitter battery is nearing the end of its life.
    • if a transmitter signal is low strength or lost.
    • if your gateway loses connection with the cloud server.
  • The gateways continue operating on battery for up to 9 hours during a power outage and immediately notify you of the power loss.
    
    

For more details on implementing the Hygeian System contact:

• Ian Schmahmann: Email: ian@hygeian.com.au  Mob +61 439 741 877
• Gordon Cornish: Email: gordon@hygeian.com.au Mob +61 408 644 965