Wakefern Food Corporation, based in Keasbey, New Jersey is the largest retailers’ cooperative group of supermarkets. They operate three perishables distribution centers in New Jersey that handle all the produce, seafood, meat, dairy, deli, and bakery products for about 400 stores on the East Coast. The distribution centers serve ShopRite, Price Rite, Dearborn Market and several other smaller banners.
Sean Ferris is the corporate food safety and regulatory compliance specialist at WakeFern Food Corporation. He oversees all aspects of food safety and quality in the distribution supply chain, from the moment the product arrives in any of their distribution centers throughout receiving, storage and shipping, with the ultimate endpoint being delivery to member stores.
Sean wanted to modernize and digitize Wakefern’s manual processes to be able to provide more detailed reports to government regulators during audits. He also wanted to know what was going on in all of their buildings, no matter where he was. He wanted real-time monitoring of temperatures, which was limited to the engineers and refrigeration teams. In Sean’s department, checklists and temperature monitoring were done by hand on paper. Their inspectors were tasked with monitoring the temperatures with handheld thermometers multiple times a day. They would go into each temperature zone and take a temperature reading on the thermometer and enter it into a spreadsheet on Excel. This manual process was very time consuming.
Immediately after OpSense was installed, Sean saw the value. The real-time data meant not having to continue taking temperatures so often. They still perform a manual validation, but only once a day and only in certain zones rather than four or five times a day in every zone.
The most valuable result has been the validation of our assumptions related to the impact of weather impacting the temperatures inside the warehouse from the data gathered in OpSense. Based on the validation, we are reconfiguring our Elizabeth produce perishable facility to enhance our product quality. We are fortifying our cold chain internally by building walls to add refrigeration in certain zones. We're replacing all of the doors on our dock with thicker insulated doors. From the data we have from OpSense, we realized that we could do better in protecting the cold chain on our end.
“OpSense has completely revolutionized how I manage the temperatures at our distribution centers. I am able to monitor numerous temperature zones at multiple locations all from my desk or my phone. The system is so easy to use and the customized checklists and reporting make regulatory compliance and auditing a breeze! The team has been awesome to work with, and are always available anytime I need them. I highly recommend this solution to our members at Shoprite stores.”
Sean Ferris
Food Safety and Quality Assurance Specialist
Around-the-clock automated refrigeration monitoring provides your distribution center or grocery store with visibility that helps prevent loss, improve refrigeration efficiency and meet or exceed food safety guidelines. OpSense is designed to deliver quick ROI by providing actionable insights that support immediate resolution of issues.
Designed to meet the needs of today’s food service retailers, OpSense gives management teams visibility and quality control. In addition to temperature, wireless sensors can monitor humidity, open doors, HVAC conditions, lighting, and more. OpSense supports critical operations including intuitive dashboards and store maps, automated messaging and alerts, task management, checklists, and reports. OpSense delivers actionable intelligence and significant savings in labor cost, compliance, and maintenance.
OpSense makes performing tasks easier and faster than ever. Create and customize multiple checklists for all your operational needs, including pharmarceuticals. You can confirm tasks were completed, take photos, add notes, record temperatures and maintain a digital record of everything. Review results in real-time from all your locations.
Generate reports for audits and analysis
Managers can see checklists as they are completed, from each location. The Weekly Checklist Summary Report and Corrective Action Report provide insights into trends and highlight locations performing well. For example, consistent corrective action may point to a location at risk or an individual that needs additional training.
