JRI deploys IoT to monitor the cold chain in McDonald's restaurant kitchens
From an initial project to monitor the walk-in coolers and freezers of McDonald's France restaurants, JRI's cold chain monitoring solutions have been extended to the refrigerated and frozen units in the kitchens of several hundred restaurants in France.
More and more foodservice professionals are realizing the benefits of installing an IoT solution in the kitchen to guarantee respect for the cold chain, a vital necessity to ensure proper food preservation and guarantee food safety.
Automation of measurement readings, real-time alarm transmission, simplicity of data management, food safety and rapid return on investment..., these are what convinced McDonald's Operations & Quality Departments to set up a vast program to deploy Nano SPY mini-temperature loggers in all the network's kitchens over 2023 and 2024.
More than a decade of collaboration for cold monitoring in kitchens
A forerunner in Internet-connected measurement and monitoring solutions, JRI began working with McDonald's in France around ten years ago, installing the SiriusWeb temperature monitoring system in the Montbéliard (East of France) franchise's kitchens.
One of the restaurant manager's objectives was to facilitate the work of his staff, who previously had to take manual readings every four to five hours.
"Reliability is an invaluable asset for us.
With the JRI solution, we avoid errors in manual temperature readings and guarantee impeccable food safety, the most important element in the restaurant business".
Mahmoud Sellami, Supervisor of the Belfort / Montbéliard franchise's 6 restaurants
JRI then began working closely with McDonald's France Quality and Environmental Equipment teams, who referenced SiriusWeb on a national scale.
Over the years, the monitoring system has proved its worth, enabling automated and efficient traceability of the cold chain within each equipped restaurant.
The reliability of the temperature recorders, combined with the user-friendly software for supervising measurements, managing temperature alarms and carrying out calibration operations, has led more than 1,300 McDonald's restaurants in France to equip themselves with the SiriusWeb solution over the last ten years.
With the 2019 launch of the JRI-MySirius solution, the partnership between the two companies has only grown stronger.
Indeed, the next-generation monitoring solution is based on precision mini IoT temperature sensors and groundbreaking software features to:
- Estimate the core temperature of each preserved product in real time, using mathematical algorithms
- Automate monitoring according to the operating periods of each equipment.
This innovation is even being exported across the Mediterranean: all McDonald's restaurants in Morocco have also chosen the JRI-MySirius solution for 2022, and many other countries are ready to follow this trend.
Rapid return on investment and enhanced food safety
Deployment of the JRI-MySirius solution in the kitchen of a McDonald's restaurant began with the installation of a Nano SPY mini temperature recorder in the positive and negative cold rooms, as well as in a number of refrigerators.
Today, in addition to the cold room and salad bar sensors, new sensors for walk-in coolers and freezers have been added to optimize cold chain monitoring.
The measurements taken by the sensors are transferred automatically. The web-based software provides an at-a-glance view of the temperature in all the equipment under surveillance, enabling rapid action to be taken to preserve products in the event of an incident.
"The JRI-MySirius solution alerts us by SMS, phone calls and e-mail as soon as there's a temperature difference of a few degrees. This saves us losses in the event of an incident.
One night, we had an alert after the restaurant had closed because a walk-in cooler door had been badly closed. As a result, we were able to avoid damage of over 5,000€!"
Mahmoud Sellami, Supervisor of the Belfort / Montbéliard franchise's 6 restaurants
Mandatory calibration work on each sensor is carried out by a simple exchange in rotation with equipment calibrated beforehand in the JRI metrology laboratory.
The corresponding metrological certificates are automatically added to the dedicated document area of the JRI-MySirius application, enabling a rapid response in the event of a health inspection.
Current developments will enable managers to self-calibrate their connected sensors, thanks to a metrology procedure integrated into JRI-MySirius and in collaboration with JRI's Metrology laboratory.
Opening up to energy consumption monitoring
Once the Nano SPY connectivity structure has been deployed in a restaurant, it is easy and economical to add a few additional Nano SPY sensors to measure electricity, water and gas consumption.
At a time when energy prices are increasing, this is a particularly interesting opportunity for controlling restaurant operating costs.
