A freezer that failed on Saturday night
On Monday morning the butcher opens the chest freezer in the back and finds it warm. The compressor stopped sometime over the weekend. Nobody knows when. Everything inside has to be assessed and, most likely, thrown away: lamb from the last batch, sausages, a stock of Christmas turkeys bought early.
The clipboard on the wall shows it was checked on Saturday morning. There is no record after that, because nobody was in on Sunday.
Even on normal days, the clipboards are a struggle. Readings are written at different times by different people, sometimes filled in later from memory, and a few days are missing entirely.
Why manual checks fall short
A farm shop has more cold storage than most small shops, spread across the shop floor, counters, back rooms and outbuildings. Checks are done by whoever is on shift, fitted around serving customers. Nobody checks overnight or on closed days. And a clipboard only shows a moment in time, not what happened in between.
- Many fridges, chillers and freezers in several buildings.
- Checks are squeezed in between serving customers.
- Nobody is on site at night or on closed days.
- Clipboard readings are sometimes filled in afterwards.
- A single reading does not show a slow rise or a door left open.
What temperatures you must keep and how you must record them are set by your own food safety procedures and your local authority. We do not advise on those. We build the monitoring and records that make it easier to follow them.
What a missed failure costs
A failed freezer or chiller can mean throwing away a large amount of stock, often your own meat, which represents months of rearing. A chiller that runs warm without failing completely is harder to spot and may affect food quality or safety. Stock loss claims on insurance are harder to make without records. And staff time spent on clipboards is time away from customers.
There is also the stress of finding out on a Monday morning, when it is too late to do anything but count the loss.
The temperature monitoring we build
- Wireless temperature sensors in each fridge, counter, chiller, hanging room and freezer, reporting regularly to a gateway on your broadband or a mobile connection for outbuildings.
- Ranges you set for each unit, with a delay so a door opened for a delivery does not trigger an alarm.
- Alerts by text and phone call to a rota of people when a unit goes out of range and stays there, day or night, escalating to the next person if nobody acknowledges.
- A record of every reading, kept for as long as you choose, with a daily summary per unit.
- A quick action log on a phone: when an alert is acknowledged, the person records what they did, such as moved stock, called the engineer or checked the door.
- Reports in the format your procedures need, for your records and for visits from your local authority, and maintenance notes per unit so a failing compressor shows up as a pattern.
| Situation | What happens |
|---|---|
| Door left open briefly | No alert, the delay covers it |
| Chiller slowly warming | Alert once out of range for your set time |
| Freezer fails overnight | Call and text to the person on the rota |
| Nobody acknowledges | Alert escalates to the next person |
| Engineer visit | Recorded against the unit's history |
If your procedures require manual checks as well, for example a probe check of a product, the phone log records those alongside the sensor readings.
Living with monitoring
Most days, nothing happens, and the daily summary shows every unit in range. The clipboards come down, or stay as a backup if your procedures require them.
When the chest freezer starts to warm on a Saturday night, the person on the rota gets a call. They drive over, move the stock into another freezer and record what they did. On Monday, the engineer is booked and the loss is avoided.
Over months, the records also show which units run close to their limits, which ones are opened too often and which ones are due for maintenance.
Is this how your cold storage is checked?
- Temperatures are written on clipboards by whoever is on shift.
- Nobody checks overnight or on closed days.
- A freezer or chiller has failed without anyone knowing until morning.
- Clipboard readings are sometimes filled in later.
- Units in outbuildings are checked less often than those in the shop.