Member Article

Navitas brings food safety management into the digital age

A new business is aiming to revolutionise the way hotels, pubs and restaurants approach food safety by using the latest technology and software to bring temperature monitoring and recording into the digital age.

Navitas is a food safety business that for the first time combines powerful software and digital hardware to make it easier for those in the catering and hospitality sector to meet today’s rigorous food safety legislation. The Navitas system takes the need for manual recording, extensive paperwork and the margin for human error out of the monitoring of food and fridge temperatures in busy commercial kitchens, saving both time and money, while ensuring that the food served is safe for customers to eat.

Ben Gardner, Managing Director, Navitas comments: “With the technology and software that’s available today, it simply doesn’t make sense that temperature recording and monitoring in particular should still create so much paperwork and be such a headache for so many in catering and hospitality.

“Navitas is a full service digital solution that recognises just how busy people working in this sector are and is designed to take the legwork and the stress out of businesses’ food safety management responsibilities. It saves businesses time by providing remote, automated fridge and freezer monitoring and helps avoid the costs and waste that can result from a fridge or freezer being out of temperature.”

The Navitas system has been developed in association with The European Safety Bureau, an environmental health consultancy with 25 years’ experience in the industry. It has three main components: the wireless Navitas Smartprobe; the Navipod monitor and the Navitab tablet. The Smartprobe is used for temperature probing food and recording the type of food being probed and features snap-on snap-off probe needles for use in raw, ready to eat and Halal food. Both the Smartprobe and the Navipod monitor, which sits smartly in a fridge or freezer, automatically records and reports temperatures back via powerful software to the Navitas database. Using the Navitab, Chefs and Catering Managers are then able to get a complete record and view of their data displayed on screen, wherever they are, on the move. Through the data collected Navitas software is also able to produce reports on the efficiency of a commercial kitchen’s temperature-controlled storage devices.

In addition to temperature monitoring, the Navitas system offers a number of other uses and benefits.

Navitas software together with the data derived from the Smartprobes and the Navipods allows businesses to create bespoke HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) charts to further ensure that the food they serve is safe for their customers to eat.

By recording such data as food deliveries, times, temperatures and invoice numbers, the system also enhances supplier management. Any non-compliant deliveries are automatically recorded and a notification email can be issued to the supplier immediately.

Finally, the Navitas database can also store food safety training records and features a compliance diary which provides a snapshot of the training status of staff members and issues reminders when training is due for renewal.

Ben Gardner concludes: “With the Navitas system we’re aiming to help businesses in the catering and hospitality sectors to become more efficient and effective. By applying digital technology to food safety management, we can bring a number of processes into one place and create a system that is simple to use and extremely cost effective.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Stephanie Dobson .