Super Bowl Sunday: TDs & TMDs

If you’re like me, the Super Bowl is a great time to barbecue. Steaks, chicken, dogs…you name it. No one will go away hungry (or thirsty) at my Super Bowl party! And as much as I’d like to trust my food safety judgement, I’ve come to rely on my handy little temperature probe as a simple food safety precaution. With a quick stab I can be assured that I’m serving up properly cooked morsels to friends and family.

Not surprisingly, there has been quite a bit of innovation in consumer food temperature monitoring technology recently. You can find all types of probes and thermometers on Amazon. Buying a new grill? You’ll find several different food temperature sensor setups, including some built right into the BBQ (smartphone app included).

From Dave’s Super Bowl Party to the Real World

Temperature measurement in a commercial food service setting isn’t a place for consumer-grade equipment. It has been my experience that measurement tools need to be built to withstand challenging conditions that include heavy-duty usage, spills, drops and everything else an entry-level worker can throw at them. Additionally, different foods require different types of sensors to safety and accurately measure temperature. Probes for meats, but also infrared scanners and RFID readers are frequently part of the temperature monitoring mix.

One product that can withstand the harsh environment of a commercial kitchen is the Procurant TMD (Temperature Measurement Device). This thing is tough – but is also sophisticated! After seeing how customers were actually using various devices for measuring and monitoring food safety, it became obvious that time was being lost as employees were being forced to switch devices as they conducted routine inspections. We combined several pieces of technology into a single handheld device. This solidly built device is easy to hold in one hand, which reduces the risk of dropping it while going through the delicate task of capturing temperatures of very hot food products.

Procurant’s TMD is also designed to work directly with a mobile task management platform. This is because the real value of a device like the TMD is its pairing with specific tasks that must be carried out by employees in a repeatable and predictable way. Automatic data capture dramatically improves the accuracy in what can be a very manual, error-prone process. In a variety of foodservice environments – think of restaurants, colleges, hospitals, corporate campuses, etc. -- some foods must be checked via a temperature probe while others are checked in a “touchless” fashion using an infrared sensor. Data is then streamed to a mobile computer (such as an Ipad or Android Tablet) and can automatically populate the forms that are required for food safety compliance.

The so-called “Internet of Things” (IoT) continues to generate opportunities to change the way that work gets done, and food safety is a great example of where this is occurring. When IoT gets paired with automated checklists, food safety policy compliance skyrockets and everyone has a better experience.

Now, I just need to find an IoT device that could cook my Super Bowl burgers perfectly while I enjoy the game!