Ben Kellett, Head Chef of Winnies Gourmet Pizza Bar in Queenstown, was asked by the owner of the well known restaurant to start using Chomp to manage food safety practices in their kitchen.
Admittedly Ben was hesitant to trial a new system at first, especially because his old paper-based system seemed to be working well, but he and the rest of his team soon realised that Chomp was easier and quicker to use than their previous system.
Now you are using Chomp tell us your thoughts - how are you finding it?
Superb! It's reduced our work load and improved our efficiency. It’s user friendly and requires almost no staff training for our new staff to use. Compare this to the paperwork system, where less experienced staff would lack confidence using it. This means that more data that is required to be recorded, is now being recorded on a timely basis. It’s noticeably easier to record fridge temperatures, which for us, with 13 fridges and freezers, is the biggest part of the day-to-day use of the FCP. Chomp also prompts you to complete other parts of the FCP, for example thermometer calibration on scheduled times so you don’t forget, whereas you would have to remember to do this every 12 weeks and dig through a binder folder to find the paper template provided by the MPI.
What improvements / results have you experienced since working with Chomp?
Better staff engagement and understanding of the FCP and what it’s there for, FCP essential tasks being completed more consistently to comply with regulations. What’s most noticeable to us is that because it’s so easy and fast to complete, it saves us time and gives us better confidence that it's being completed. It takes the stress out of worrying that the FCP is being completed on time.
What is do you like most about Chomp?
It's quick and easy to use, and it's ability to customise tasks and schedules to your venue from the back office.
What do you think of the improvements to Chomp/new releases that Chomp had brought out, to both the app and the back office program?
The back office is now much more reader friendly. I can log on and see what has been completed, and what needs to be completed at a glance (if you compare this to before where I would have to take the big binder folder off the shelf and flick through each page!). For me I just have a quick look at the app after doing the ordering. The best improvement for me has been improving the efficiency and ease of recording fridge temperatures, as this is what takes the most time out of the day-to-day use of the FCP.
Describe your experience working with Chomp.
Excellent, they have really listened to feedback and it’s amazing to see that being implemented in updates.
Explain why Chomp is value for money/how you justify the cost to your business.
It’s less work for everyone, it ensures the FCP is being fully completed when it should be, it gives me 100% confidence that we are compliant, takes the stress out of the paperwork for the audit, staff have better understanding and engagement with the FCP (it also has as staff food safety training module), it gives me a better understanding of what’s getting done in the kitchen as it’s easy to see at a glance from the back office, it goes above and beyond an FCP because you can design and schedule maintenance and cleaning tasks to organise the kitchen.
For busy kitchens or multi-site kitchens, it’s a no brainer. The old FCP system is something that needed modernising. From seeing the improvements that Chomp has made over the last year, I can see that it’s only going to get better. I’m excited to see what Chomp will do in the future.
Find out more about how Chomp can help you become audit ready, all the time in our eBook.
