Smart Thermometer for Food Safety Management

January 22, 2021

Efficient food safety measures, namely temperature control, can contribute to mitigating the global problem of foodborne diseases. Temperature control procedures are in place in many establishments but often lack efficiency and can strongly benefit from process optimization, both on the perspective of temperature control and record taking, mainly when measurements are required to be taken through the use of a thermometer. With this work, the objective is to create a functional prototype of a smart thermometer used to control temperatures more efficiently and reliably, enabling greater control over the measurements that food safety management systems, including HACCP and traceability systems, require. The proposed solution includes features such as allowing user authentication, machine and product RFID identification, presentation of daily tasks, and automatic remote submission to a database. Feedback was received from an HACCP consulting company responsible for more than 400 establishments. A survey was also conducted to four food safety managers from different sectors of the food industry, together responsible for food safety in more than 700 establishments. The received feedback confirmed that food safety managers see value in the presented solution and it’s their belief that it can be used to prevent possible errors caused by the human factor and optimize the temperature control processes. The prototype developed met the requirements defined and presents new and improved features when compared to existent solutions in the market.

Authors in the community:

• 

  T

  Tiago Teixeira de Almeida

  ist176248

Supervisors of this institution:

• 

  J

  João Nuno De Oliveira e Silva

  ist14028

electrical-engineering-electronic-engineering-information-engineering - Electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering

eng - English

Instituto Superior Técnico