Care

In care, strict food safety rules apply, and residents are among the most vulnerable eaters there are. Temperature monitoring for care watches every fridge in the care home kitchen, day and night, with rotating staff who already have their hands full.

Why temperature monitoring in care?

Vulnerable residents pick up a foodborne illness more easily and recover from it with more difficulty. That makes every link in the cold chain count, from the central kitchen to the ward fridge. Meals, fresh produce and dairy must stay below 7 degrees, and the freezer below minus 18. With shifting rotas and changing staff, a manual check is hard to keep up consistently.

Coolwatcher measures each cold point continuously and keeps the whole care home's cooling in view. Hygiene stays covered without it depending on whether one member of staff remembered to fill in the sheet.

HACCP compliance despite rotating staff

It is exactly where many different people work in the kitchen that gaps appear in the temperature log. HACCP requires watertight records kept for 2 years, and inspectors check for them. Coolwatcher records automatically and, when a fault occurs, logs the corrective action, whoever is on duty. The monthly report is always complete and traceable, and a fine from 525 euro never arrives.

Who warns the night shift about a failure?

In a care home people eat around the clock, but the kitchen is not always staffed. If a fridge fails at night or over the weekend, a large stock of meals worth 2,000 to 5,000 euro can be lost. Coolwatcher sends a fridge and freezer alert straight to the responsible person over WhatsApp, at any hour. On a critical failure such as a power outage Coolwatcher calls the member of staff on duty, even at night, and moves on to the next contact if no one answers. The NB IoT sensor works without WiFi, even in a cellar or central kitchen.

The alert goes to the person responsible at that moment, not to a paper sheet that only gets read on Monday. That lets the night shift still act before a whole stock of meals is lost.

Coolwatcher gives care homes a grip on food safety and hygiene without adding to the burden of caring for residents. The cold chain stays watched, whoever is on duty.