The Importance of Temperature and Food
The proper storage of food, at the correct temperatures, is a very important part of preventing both food poisoning and premature food spoilage. No matter what stage of the food ‘chain' you specialize in, whether farmer, producer or restaurateur, it is vital that the food you prepare is properly looked after, as the chain is only as strong as its weakest link. As living standards improve and people become more affluent, greater demands are made to ensure that the quality of raw and prepared foods is maintained.

The need for HACCP monitoring solutions?
The monitoring and recording of food temperatures, both in storage and during preparation, play an important role in helping to protect people against unsafe food and the illness, even death, it can cause. The adoption of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point or HACCP systems has done much to safeguard the food we consume, by putting systems in place to carefully monitor the temperatures at which food is stored and prepared.

The 7 principles of HACCP

1. Identifying any hazards that must be prevented, eliminated or reduced to acceptable levels
2. Identifying the critical control points at the step or the steps at which control is essential to prevent or eliminate a hazard or to reduce it to acceptable levels.
3. Establishing critical limits at critical control points which separate acceptability from unacceptability for the prevention, elimination or reduction of identified hazards.
4. Establishing and implementing effective monitoring procedures at critical control points
5. Establishing corrective actions when monitoring indicates that a critical control point is not under control
6. Establishing procedures which shall be carried out regularly to verify that the measures outlined above are working effectively
7. Establishing documents and records commensurate with the nature and size of the food business to demonstrate the effective applications of the measures outlined above

What is DigiTrak?
DigiTrak is a wireless temperature monitoring system that provides consistent temperature monitoring automatically, remotely and wirelessly.

DigiTrak captures and assembles temperature data in easy to read paperless reports through the Internet.

Why use DigiTrak?

• It provides wireless and accurate data monitoring
• There is continuous temperature monitoring
• Paperless reporting
• There is Instantaneous alarm notifications via email, SMS or fax, etc.
• Multi-user access
• Fast simple and inexpensive installation
• Fully scalable
• Records corrective actions
• Network connection options available.

What are the benefits?

• Completely paperless HACCP data reporting
• Removes "human error" factor associated with manual temperature data collection
• Potential energy savings using door sensor alerts
• Improves preventive maintenance management of equipment
• System expansion to suit your business growth

How does DigiTrak work?
The Digitrak system brings HACCP into the 21st Century, combining 3 separate components into 1 total Solution. These components include, Digitrak RF, Digitrak PDA and Digitrak Mobile.

DigiTrak RF
Combines the most recent advances in wireless technology with a comprehensive visualization and configuration software package, which allows the tracking of critical data automatically.

By positioning remote RF sensors in, at or near the perishable products or equipment you wish to be monitored, temperature, humidity or door contact status data is sent wirelessly to the base station, which is connected to a designated PC or networked computer.

DigiTrak RF consists of the following devices:
- Temperature sensor
- Door contact sensor
- Temperature and Humidity sensor

These RF sensors can be configured to have a maximum and minimum range, hence should the software detect that a temperature has fallen out of range, alarms will be set off both audibly and visually. An in-built escalation profile where by should the alarm not be acknowledged in a timely manner messages will be sent out by SMS and/or e-mails. This escalation process will continue until a corrective action has been taken.

DigiTrak PDA
This is a hand held roaming device that enables the integration of manual paper tasks such as inventory checks, cleaning schedules and temperature checks into the PDA.

Upon completion of the forms the information is transferred via a download base unit to DigiTrak software to produce paperless HACCP compliant reports. This saves on paper, clipboards and pens.

Temperatures
Use the probe and customized checklist to take temperatures. These data can be synchronized with the computer.

Training
Allows managers to monitor employee performance and track their training.

Inspections
Built-in barcode scanner allows checking refrigerated food storage areas for cleanliness. The time/date stamp and user log in allows for transparency of the system.

Goods Inventory
Check your inventory using barcodes. Temperature of the goods can also be checked with the probe.

DigiTrak Mobile
This is an ideal solution for recording temperature of products during transfer between locations. Small and easy to use, these self-powered time and temperature datalogging devices are splash, dirt and impact resistant and can record temperatures at intervals from 1 minute to every 4 hours.

The loggers are configured using DigiTrak software, which enables the operator to set upper and lower temperature limits as well as frequency of recordings. Using the PC interface supplied, up to 2048 recordings can be downloaded and viewed through the visualization software as graphical or numerical data.

With a temperature range of -30°C to +85°C DigiTrak Mobile offers an excellent mobile solution for monitoring temperatures of products like food, medicine and blood where temperature validation is essential.

Technology driven HACCP compliance solutions

Automatic temperature monitoring not only reduces cost of HACCP monitoring but can also improve facilitate efficiency.

Energy Waste Reduction -data can be analyzed to check efficiency of refrigerated food storage areas. Typically, door contact sensors can indicate when a door has been left open by mistake prompting an immediate corrective action. By regular monitoring and ensuring doors are closed, energy consumption can be greatly reduced. The energy consumption is reduced and saves 1.5% for every 1° variance. To power the individual transmitters a battery is used, which has an ambient life of up to 5 years in ambient conditions.

Labor Cost Reduction - Automated data collection reduces the amount of manual temperature measurements required and ensures accurate data is recorded, as it is not prone to the ‘human error' factor. Wireless technology also means installation is easy and there is no need for costly cabling and electrical work.

Product Waste Reduction - Alarm notifications such as email, SMS text. LED message boards, pop-up windows, fax or simple flashing light indicate when there is a threshold breach within a food storage area and action can be taken to prevent costly product spoilage.

Reduced Paper Storage - Reports can be created automatically from the database, and stored directly onto either a local PC or networked server. Specific information can then be printed off as required. This will enable organizations to consume less paper.

Typical Set up for DigiTrak

Applications for DigiTrak

• Hotels and Restaurant
  • Multiple food storage and serving areas over a wide area (restaurants on different floors, banquet kitchens)
  • Off site catering
  • Goods receiving
  • Supply chain management (quality control)
  • Cleaning schedules
  • Staff training
• Food Production
  • Monitor food storage areas
  • Monitor frozen or chilled areas
  • Monitor production processes (boiling/steaming)
  • Validate cooling processes in blast chillers/freezers
  • Raw materials inventory management (goods receiving)
• Pharmaceutical / Laboratory
  • Monitor drugs/vaccines/chemicals sensitive to temperature change
  • Where clean room and warehouse access is restricted, wireless data collection is a practical benefit
  • Instrument washing rinse temperature
  • Range of sensors for low and ultra low temperatures plus humidity
  • Software compliant to CFR11 Part 2 validation
• Warehousing & Distribution
  • Monitor food in storage environment
  • Alerts for external doors being left open
  • Portable Pocket PC allows electronic quality checks of received and stored perishable goods
  • Instant temperature checks
  • Supplier/consignment details can be recorded
  • Goods in transit monitored by portable data loggers
  • Thermal profile of environment (source to destination)