Food Safety: Promising Role of Data and Analytics in Pandemic Times

Pandemic related stresses on the food supply and qualms about food safety have heightened the significance of software systems designed for food producers and distributors.

FREMONT, CA: Periods of extreme disturbance, whether to a family or individual business, a family or society at large, produce clear incentives to change the state of affairs, creating the situations for the mass implementation of things that seemed impractical or unlikely before the crisis.

The pandemic and its associated lockdowns have caused technologies and practices such as omnipresent videoconferencing, restaurant and grocery delivery, telemedicine and first-run movie streaming, regulatory roadblocks, and corporate administrative inertia to become mainstream phenomena in just weeks.

Using Data and Analytics to Control Processes

A desire to swap paper with digital record keeping and data analysis is vital for food manufacturers, comprising small, artisanal producers. For both large retailers and boutique food producers, the advantages of digitizing controls, processes, and measurements are similar, explicitly:

• Improved productivity and competence by having instant admission to records by removing the paper chase, reducing inconsistent and redundant data entry, and making summary reports accessible on-demand, including remotely.

• Data and analytics help in enhanced audit readiness and regulatory compliance through reports and data tailored for specific standards comprising the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HAACP), and certification programs that are presented on-demand.

• Effectiveness by optimizing manufacturing and logistical process flows, reducing equipment downtime, and eliminating travel by company compliance propositions.

More prominently in the times of airborne pathogens and the danger of viral spread to food staff and products, digitized data and workflows can warrant the food supply's safety. Accordingly, five chief ways that plant management software can alleviate the virus spread during a pandemic.

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• Constrict the inspection of food suppliers through information on possible supply disruptions and requests for viral mitigation processes.

• Enforcement and formalization of augmented assessment, sanitation, and employee testing processes.

• Curtailing human contact through computerized techniques and digital data sharing by substituting paper with mobile devices.

• Allowing remote management and work-from-home by providing access to reports and information from anywhere at any time.

• Providing instant figures and analysis that let rapid reaction to changes in product distribution or demand.