 Do digital orders represent a high percentage of your overall sales? According to data from the National Restaurant Association, digital orders comprised 16 percent of all foodservice orders in 2023, more than triple the pre-pandemic share. This may call for new approaches to managing food safety. Foodservice businesses cause the highest number of foodborne illness outbreaks each year, according to the CDC. While the CDC doesn’t currently track foodborne illness outbreaks resulting from digital online orders or delivery from foodservice businesses, these orders create new vulnerabilities for the industry. As a recent Food Safety Magazine article explained, digital orders can rapidly increase the scale of orders coming into a restaurant, making it easier for safety monitoring tasks to slip through the cracks. There is more room for miscommunication to food handlers regarding allergen-free meals, or for allergen messaging that is central to the in-restaurant ordering process to be overlooked in digital channels. Placing orders in the hands of delivery drivers introduces additional risks. Technology can help businesses manage many of these hazards – by automating preparation tasks, housing allergen data online, and dialing down the volume of digital orders when needed, for example. But safety plans are needed to back up these tools. That includes having a process HACCP plan for every menu item prepared in the kitchen – especially the items most commonly ordered for delivery. Managers can also help ensure ingredients approved for a recipe aren’t substituted in the moment. In the event of a surge in digital orders, designated digital prep lines can help protect the safety of orders for delivery. Businesses preparing food in a ghost kitchen that processes orders for other brands can introduce food safety specifications to protect their menu and manage cross-contamination risks. Finally, training employees on the approved preparation method for each menu item, including the hazard controls for each dish, can serve as a safety net that reinforces all other controls.
 In your restaurant, to what extent do your staff simply expect to find intermittent food safety issues with the ingredients you bring into your business? A recent Food Safety Magazine article describes how in food processing facilities, there seems to be a focus on controlling as opposed to preventing certain food safety hazards. In other words, comments like “We expect to find Listeria in our plant” have become common. But this response is more about fighting fires than preventing them from happening – and this creates risks that trickle down to foodservice operations. When a food safety issue is tolerated and corrected on the spot without further action, tolerance becomes encouraged. From there, the problem is likely to become more common – for both the food processor and the restaurants downstream that serve its products. So within your foodservice business, how do you stop this downward drift in food safety standards? When someone on your team finds a problem, are they clear about what to do next? Do you have procedures in place to make sure the supplier is notified and can explain what sustainable steps they will take to prevent the issue from recurring? Finding weak points in your food safety procedures (internally and up the supply chain) and then taking prompt action can help ensure you’re not in permanent firefighting mode when it comes to your food safety.
 Some facets of food safety can’t be delegated to machines — equipment still needs to be cleaned, technology can malfunction, and staff need to understand how they can manually manage and protect food safety and quality in your operation. However, at a time when foodservice businesses need to use all of the staff they have available without cutting corners on key tasks, automation (supported through a kitchen’s interconnected sensors) can be critical in streamlining tasks and reducing costs. As a recent report from Modern Restaurant Management explains, these benefits are evident in restaurants using digitized logbooks and food monitoring systems. In real time, they can alert staff to early warning signs that a food safety issue is present, then trigger automated actions in response. Such tools can also ensure that potential food safety risks are caught after hours when no one is on your premises — a helpful benefit when severe weather is becoming a more frequent threat in many parts of the country.
 The rise of automation in restaurants has promised benefits including greater efficiency, consistency and revenue. (For example, a recent report about Sweetgreen’s first robotic Infinite Kitchen say the location has delivered restaurant-level margins of 31 percent, a 45 percent reduction in employee turnover, and a ten percent increase in check sizes.) As the minimum wage increases and restaurants continue to face other pressures, the drive for automation will only continue. But is food safety keeping up? Food safety expert Francine Shaw expressed some doubts in a recent podcast. She relayed how she had been asked to review the policies and procedures of a restaurant that was already operating automated restaurants in a number of states. But they lacked a HACCP plan and had no food safety management or personal hygiene plan of any kind. She made recommendations to this business but they decided not to follow them because of the expense. Such examples raise concerns: When the machines supporting a foodservice operation need to be broken down and cleaned every few hours, will the staff be trained and available to do that? Will the business be able to demonstrate to their insurer that automation is resulting in stronger food safety results? Food safety won’t be an automatic result of automation — it will require a plan that keeps pace with the advancement in other parts of a business.
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