According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, every year, an estimated 48 million people get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die from eating contaminated food. So, there is always room for improving food safety standards - even at the best restaurant's like yours.
Greater insights into your sales, inventory and even labor data will better equip your restaurant to maintain great food safety standards. How? Here are a few ways your restaurant's data will influence your food safety initiatives.
Better forecasting can mean fresher food
Food production planning is directly related to food safety and your prep should be fueled by insights into your sales and inventory data. That allows you to accurately forecast what you’ll need to prepare on a daily basis.
Suppose your forecasts are off and you prepare too much. Now you have unused food sitting around. Or, you might not prepare enough, and now you aren’t giving certain meals the preparation care they need. The more data you have at your disposal, the better your forecasting, which optimizes your food production planning.
Identify opportunities for employee training
Your staff plays a big role in maintaining food safety. When a food safety incident occurs, the best thing you can do is take preventive measures to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
The more information you have at your disposal the better. Knowing when and how the incident occurred could lead you to the conclusion that some employees weren’t properly trained on how to properly manage certain food products. When you are unable to pinpoint when an incident occurred, it becomes harder to determine the cause and more expensive to solve. The right restaurant management software won't just optimize labor cost management, it will ensure your employees are trained to properly handle food and ensure safety compliance.
Optimizing your inventory management
How you manage your inventory directly affects food freshness. Having more accurate inventory data can reduce food safety risks because you’ll know exactly what you have in stock and when those items expire(d).
Complex food inventories, especially for restaurants with larger menus, are fraught with potential safety issues. An inventory management solution can provide the data insights and organization you need to reduce food safety risks in your stock rooms.
Once you have the data you need to enhance food safety procedures, how do you arm your employees with this information to ensure they're making the most of it? A great solution is CrunchTime! Line Check™ - a mobile tablet app that can quickly guide staff through important restaurant food safety tasks. This app will centralize data and safety standards, too, so all team members get quick access to pertinent information.
Food safety and data quality really do go hand-in-hand. Reach out to us to learn how we can help with your restaurant food safety program.
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