Tag Archives: wireless

By Roelof Koopmans

To get to the restaurant table, food must travel great lengths to preserve that farm fresh quality and in many cases, IoT-enabled sensors are being used to do this. This is especially important as the World Health Organization estimates that one in 10 people fall ill every year from eating contaminated food.

When we think of our favorite dish, we often associate it with delicious flavors, pleasant scents and even memories of a night out with friends. What we likely don’t consider is technology, something that’s critical in ensuring the meal on our plate is safe to consume. Technology plays an essential role in guaranteeing that restaurants are serving fresh food to customers. From identifying operational deficiencies to protecting the overall brand of an organization, there are certain measures restaurants are taking—whether local or country-wide chains—to ensure food quality remains a top priority.

Restaurants are perhaps held to an even higher standard than your local supermarket when it comes to the quality of food on the table. Therefore, it’s imperative that perishables are cared for properly throughout the entirety of the food supply chain and that starts well before the food ever enters the restaurant’s front door. With long-range, low-power wireless IoT technology, farmers can get insights into a number of variables that may impact the growth of their crops. Armed with that knowledge, they can make real-time decisions to optimize crop growth and ultimately produce a greater yield. For example, farmers today can set up a series of sensors throughout their farm to measure real-time soil conditions, including humidity and pH levels. If they notice an especially high pH, for example, they can immediately remedy the situation and provide the crop with the proper nutrients or conditions it needs to grow.

For food safely to arrive at restaurants, it must be kept in a controlled environment during its journey from the farm or warehouse, and carefully monitored during that time. The temperature of refrigerated shipping units or storage facilities is an incredibly important factor, as bacteria growth can increase even by simply opening the refrigerator door or with a slight temperature shift, and employees are often tasked with managing this. With large facilities comes increased labor for employees, which can lead to inefficient temperature monitoring. To eliminate food waste and contamination, IoT sensors deployed throughout facilities can eliminate human error, and deliver more consistent monitoring, via real-time updates when temperatures enter unsafe territories.

Numerous international food handling and food safety laws have been implemented to reduce the risk of foodborne illness resulting from bacterial growth. A major component of most “farm-to-fork” regulations is the ability to track, report and maintain appropriate temperature conditions inside refrigeration and freezer units throughout the entire cold chain—including when the food finally makes it the restaurant.

This is a universal priority for restaurants around the world, including Hattie B’s Hot Chicken, a southern-style food chain, which started in Nashville and now has locations nationwide. To successfully do this, the restaurant turned to technology. They used a supplier of wireless connectivity solutions with integrated long range, low power technology for temperature monitoring sensors. The sensors, which are capable of penetrating stainless steel doors and concrete walls, can monitor temperatures in refrigerators and freezers. This is essential, as the technology eliminates possible human error in manually checking temps and other food safety procedures. In instances where refrigerator temperatures shift out of range, the technology remotely notifies restaurant managers in real-time, allowing them to act quickly, ensuring their perishables remain fresh and safe for customers at all times.

Food waste in restaurants is closely tied to food safety. In the United States alone, food waste is estimated to be between 30–40% of the food supply, according to the USDA. In the restaurant industry in particular, human error is one of the most notable reasons for food waste. To eliminate the human error when handling food and monitoring storage, an IoT solution provider for the industrial, smart city and smart energy segments, integrated long-range low power technology into smart refrigeration solutions for restaurant applications. This IoT solution is designed for humidity and temperature monitoring, delivering real-time updates to managers to ensure the shelf life of food is maximized and it remains safe to consume, ultimately leading to a decrease in food waste.

From farm to table, technology plays an essential role in ensuring restaurants are delivering the highest quality of fresh, safe food. It allows organizations to identify operational deficiencies and reduce overall food safety risk, which is imperative when maintaining a strong business in a competitive industry.

September 10, 2019

FST Soapbox

Increasing Food Safety and Spoilage Prevention in the IoT Era

By Marc Pégulu

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According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, it is estimated that nearly one third of the food produced (about 1.3 billion tons) globally is not consumed. To help tackle this billion-dollar problem, an innovative solution is being deployed to detect one of the key factors driving food waste: Spoilage due to fluctuations in temperature.

To get to the dinner table, food must travel great lengths to preserve that farm fresh quality. Refrigerated shipping units and storage facilities are essential to reducing bacteria growth and by using an automated smart-refrigeration solution, a food-safe environment can be maintained throughout the journey with little supervision. Traditional food temperature monitoring is reliant on staff to periodically check temperature levels and make adjustments as necessary. This process is not scalable, meaning that with a larger facility or an increased number of food displays, it becomes increasingly labor intensive and inefficient. If employees are preoccupied, periodic check-ins may be delayed or missed entirely, leading to gaps where temperature fluctuations are not addressed, opening the door for increased bacteria growth and food waste.

LoRa fights food waste — LoRa devices and LoRaWAN protocol are being integrated into smart refrigeration solutions to fight food waste. Image courtesy of Semtech.

To solve this issue, Internet of Things (IoT) sensors can be deployed in shipping vehicles, displays, refrigerators, and storerooms to provide accurate and consistent monitoring of temperature data. When a temperature fluctuation occurs, the sensors will send a signal to a low power, wide area network (LPWAN) gateway application. The information is then relayed to a network server, where it is routed to application servers or Cloud IoT services. The data is then processed and sent to the end user through a desktop or smartphone application. What’s more, in the event of a power outage, these long range, low power wireless enabled IoT devices are battery powered and consume minimal energy, allowing for consistent off-grid temperature tracking.

These connected devices can be found globally in a variety of use cases ranging from quick service restaurants to full service grocery stores, with an end goal of ensuring appropriate temperature levels for food. To support connectivity for these devices, an open network protocol is used to ensure the devices can be scalable and globally deployed. Two recent use cases where the long range, low power wireless devices and LoRaWAN protocol were used to actively monitor temperature fluctuations are Axino Solutions (Axino) and ComplianceMate.

Axino recently integrated LoRa devices and LoRaWAN protocol into its line of smart refrigeration solutions with the goal of combatting food waste. The solution combines sensor technology with automated data communication providing a substantial increase in measurement quantity and quality. Additionally, stores found a significant reduction in metering and operating costs after sensor deployment. This smart refrigeration solution has been globally deployed and is currently used by Switzerland’s largest supermarket chain, Migos. Axino’s sensors can be quickly installed, utilizing a magnet to attach to a refrigerator’s infrastructure. The sensors monitor temperature in real time, are accurate to one degree Celsius and can be pre-programmed to adjust refrigerator temperatures to ensure that food is stored in a safe environment. By having access to real time data and automatic temperature adjustment, supermarkets were able to eliminate human error, prolong shelf life and pass energy savings off to the customers.

The challenge for any wirelessly connected device is the presence of physical barriers that will block signals. Steel doors, concrete and insulation are some of the key considerations when developing a smart solution, especially in restaurants using large freezers. ComplianceMate partnered with Laird Connectivity and found that devices on a LoRaWAN-based network produces a more reliable signal than its Bluetooth counterpart. This IoT solution has been deployed in some of your favorite restaurant chains such as Shake Shack, Five Guys, Hard Rock Café, City Barbeque, and Hattie B’s and has already proved to be a huge asset. For instance, a sensor deployment saved $35,000 to $50,000 worth of inventory in a Hattie B’s location when downtown Nashville experienced a sudden power outage in 2018. The LoRa-based alert system immediately notified store management, allowing them to act quickly and prevent food spoilage.

Reducing global food spoilage is a monumental task. From farms to grocery stores and restaurants, technology must play a critical role, ensuring food remains at a safe temperature, preventing unnecessary spoilage. In the era of connectivity, businesses will turn to LoRa-based IoT deployments for its flexibility, durability and ability to provide real-time information to employees and decision makers to not only maintain strict industry standards in food safety, but to also pass savings on to their valued customers.

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