Implementing Digital Guidelines for Safety and Hygiene in the Ice Cream Industry

Our client is a leading gelato manufacturer in Germany and we have already worked together to improve the efficiency of onboarding procedures. This time we were tasked with implementing and simplifying the system of sanitary norms control in production. This has a direct impact on product quality and consumer safety.

Problem: hygiene standards and safety when working with allergens

Food production requires not only strict adherence to hygiene standards in the workplace, but also employee awareness of them in everyday life. The client faced a number of challenges:

• Employee hygiene. Lack of attention to hygiene led to contamination of products and consequently not releasing whole batches of product.
• Allergen handling. The need for additional strict control when switching from one type of raw material or filler to another. Since the client works on natural raw materials, a mistake can cause consumer’s allergic reactions.

Objectives:

• To develop and implement clear and comprehensible digital instructions and checklists for hygiene compliance, accessible to a multinational team.
• To ensure control and standardization of allergen handling processes to minimize risks to consumers.
• To create tools for automated verification of work area cleanliness and hygiene compliance.

Solution:

To address the challenges, ProcessNavigation implemented digital instructions and checklists that standardized processes and made them accessible to employees.

Key aspects of the solution:

Hygiene regulations. Instructions cover all important aspects of hygiene both on and off the job:

• Hygiene at home
• Sanitary standards when coming to work
• Use of sanitary facilities
• Entering and working in production areas

Working with allergens. We developed detailed checklists for transitioning between different fillers that can cause allergic reactions. This allowed us to:

• Standardize the allergen handling process
• Reduce the risk of cross-contamination
• Ensure control of the cleanliness of work areas

Automated control. Workplace photo and video tools are integrated to help the shift supervisor ensure that sanitary standards and cleanliness of the work area are maintained.

Result: improved hygiene and safety

After implementing digital instructions, the client achieved the following results:

• Improved hygiene levels. Clear instructions and the possibility of unscheduled inspections helped employees to be more attentive to important aspects of personal and workplace hygiene. This has reduced the number of spoiled batches of ice cream.
• Minimizing the risks of working with allergens. There were fewer cross-contamination incidents, which had a positive impact on product quality and consumer safety.
• Automating cleanliness control. Reduced the workload of shift supervisors by utilizing photo and video recording to verify sanitation compliance.

Conclusion

Our team, together with the client, managed to implement solutions to improve safety and hygiene in an ice cream production facility. The implementation of these tools helped to increase employee awareness, standardize processes and ensure compliance control. As a result, the number of spoiled batches has been reduced, allergic reactions due to ingredient mix-ups have been reduced, and the product is consistently hygienically compliant.