Building a data-driven food safety and inspection operation

Taking food safety to the next level with data-driven insights

Marley Spoon Australia is a pioneer in using data to elevate food safety and quality standards. Thousands of fresh, ready-to-cook meals are delivered to Australians every single week.

Marley Spoon keeps food at its best with the SafetyCulture platform and Sensors. Digital audits and insights is helping Marley Spoon have visibility in the problems that matter, so that action can be taken faster.

Business impact: Setting a new standard for global safety and quality operations

Their recipe for success? Running a data-driven operation using digital tools like the SafetyCulture platform and Sensors.

From paper to digital, the digitized processes, automated checks and operational data insights has transformed the business:

• 3x the audit efficiency, compared to paper-based processes
• $20,000 in paper saved annually
• $200,000 to $300,000 worth of daily food protected during production days
• A globally recognized food and safety operation in Australia

The success in Australia is the driving force behind the decision to roll out the SafetyCulture platform across every Marley Spoon facility across the globe. Consistent standards for safety, quality and audits will mean fresh meals for customers everywhere.

Making business decisions with confidence: Analytics and insights that matter

The more data visible to Marley Spoon through the SafetyCulture platform, the better the team can make informed decisions, like:

• Evaluating supplier performance
• Optimizing just-in-time supply chains
• Reducing waste
• Ensuring product quality
• Improving resource planning

Data analytics: The driving force behind long-term gains

Tracking trends is critical for Marley Spoon’s success. They can identify what areas to focus on and what to improve so that they can confidently take action. Visibility into supplier performance lets the team pick apart patterns that lead to risk. Trends in the time taken to complete routine audits can help the team source the right number of staff to get the job done. The team can also manage supplier relationships better by recognizing unusual patterns in supplier non-conformance reports.

From process to plate: Connecting the dots between quality and happy customers

Quality can be hard to measure. With digital processes in place, customers have better experiences:

• Customers cook with consistently high quality ingredients
• Customers don’t get sick from spoiled food
• Customers complain less, resulting in less administration, returns and re-shipping boxes

Happier customers tend to stick around for longer and tell their friends and family about Marley Spoon.

One of the processes Marley Spoon uses on the SafetyCulture platform is an inspection that checks that all the right ingredients have been packed into a meal delivery box. The result: In-house error rates have been lowered to 5%. Processes set up on the SafetyCulture platform aren’t just working, but they’re contributing to less customer complaints.

Leading the food industry: A shift to paperless HACCP

Sofia paved the way for Marley Spoon to operate all audits and inspections digitally. This includes digitizing HACCP, a food safety monitoring system that identifies key risk areas and determines critical control points (CCP) in the process of food production.

Record-time certifications by auditors: Here’s a tablet, not a room full of binders

Rapid certification renewals and no business hassles are now the new normal. In fact, SafetyCulture gives Marley Spoon the confidence to hand over a tablet to external auditors with every single audit and inspection ever conducted. Since implementing the SafetyCulture platform, Marley Spoon has passed and successfully renewed their food safety and quality certifications in record time.

Operating with peace of mind: Reducing food waste with Temperature Sensors

Keep meat, dairy and produce in the heat for a few hours – and come back to spoiled food. For Marley Spoon, $200,000 to $300,000 in food inventory can be thrown out on an average production day if storage temperatures aren’t monitored. The risk of recalls, people becoming sick and customers leaving are the realities of sending out poor quality food for Marley Spoon.

Manual routine cold room checks by the quality team was the old way of monitoring and maintaining temperature levels.

Now, Marley Spoon recruits the help of Sensors to automate the monitoring process. It’s cut down staff hours, brought a layer of peace-of-mind and food is ending up in dinner bowls – not bins.

Pinpointing the right time to respond: A simple way to track temperature changes

The smallest errors can cost the most. One weekend, a cold room door wasn’t closed properly in the Marley Spoon production facility. Temperatures started rising and the Sensors triggered an alert. The team sent someone immediately to the facility to close the door. If the problem had been discovered on Monday – it would’ve been too late and the food inventory would be spoiled.

Keeping food fresh and safe

Marley Spoon is committed to delivering fresh ingredients to their customers within just two days of receiving it from farmers and suppliers. But, there are hundreds of areas of risk and failure during the food safety and quality assurance operation. Food contamination, spoiled food and compliance breaches can occur in any given week.

Running into these kinds of mistakes means that Marley Spoon risks not being compliant, wasting food and losing customers.

To uphold quality standards, the Marley Spoon team conducts ongoing audits. The audits are designed to monitor, track and comply to industry standards.

Before the SafetyCulture platform, the team used a mix of paper-based audits, digital audits and food monitoring practices. But, information was still mostly manual and the team couldn’t take action quickly enough.

Now, the team can stay compliant, work faster and have visibility into operational problems that can be addressed right away.

With the SafetyCulture platform in place – Marley Spoon has the right information at their fingertips to give their customers the best experience.