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Avoid bitter pills down the line


Derek Richardson, international sales director of Hanwell Solutions explains how the effective environmental monitoring of food and drugs can save the pain of compromised product integrity.


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o matter how diligent a food manufacturer or a pharmaceutical company may be, their efforts could be in vain if product integrity is compromised because there is a failing in robust temperature monitoring procedures further down the supply chain. It’s not that difficult to keep tabs on conditions with the technology available today, like the British-engineered wireless monitoring solutions that provide real-time data and early- warnings of potentially damaging environmental fluctuations, such as temperature and humidity, on a 24/7 basis.


The chill f+actor


An unbroken cold chain which maintains a given temperature range is vital to help extend and ensure the shelf life of products such as fresh produce, seafood, frozen food, and pharmaceutical drugs, but even with the advances in refrigeration technology things can go wrong leading to compromised conditions. A lot of the time temperatures are monitored properly at the production, storage and distribution stages but quite often the monitoring becomes very poor or sub-standard once it gets into a retail environment, where you have got much more handling of the product potentially in conditions where the temperature is rising in bacteria growth areas.


Understanding the correct storage temperatures, whether you run a small food outlet, pharmacy or supermarket, is important


22 February 2021


if you want products that are as fresh and safe as possible – it makes sense to fit a monitoring device to ensure conditions stay at the appropriate levels.


A hospital is likely to be aware of the temperature range at which certain drugs and other products should be stored. What about retailers though? How many times have you waited to fulfil a prescription and observed the pharmacist sourcing all the products from shelves or drawers in an ambient room or cupboard, subject to the temperature and humidity in the store as a whole?


There is currently no reporting structure once products have been delivered to their end destination. Pills not stored within the correct temperature range could well degrade, whilst liquid medicines may separate out. How much waste is created because someone notices the failure in storage protocol and simply throws away the affected products?


I’ve watched employees at retailers in airports going around with handheld thermometers but you never get an accurate reading that way as it’s not possible to leave it in there long enough to stabilise the instrument - a monitoring system is in there permanently so you get the right answers as well as saving staff time.


Highly-accurate wireless environmental monitoring solutions available from UK manufacturers such as Hanwell detect the early signs of temperature deviation. The quicker a problem is identified the quicker it can be


rectified and issues avoided.


Despite the latest cooling solutions and packing technology the food industry deploys to protect what we eat – from freezers on wheels for transportation, chillers and drive in refrigeration plants as big as a football pitch, to MAP packaging – food poisoning still affects thousands of people every year in the UK, some cases of which can be deadly such as salmonella and listeria.


Regulation, regulation, regulation To try and keep consumers safe and enforce ever- increasing legislation there is a veritable forest of regulatory bodies to negotiate through, each with their own requirements – the FDA, MHRA, CQC, FSA, GMP, GDP and UKAS to name them – so no wonder manufacturers get frustrated with the time that needs to be spent on ensuring compliance if the potential pitfalls are occurring at the other end of their chain, through a lack of effective monitoring procedures. There are many environmental monitoring solutions available which could provide better protection for temperature-sensitive products. However, the most effective and accurate are wireless transmitter-based solutions, rather than those using Wi-Fi technology which is not as reliable.


New, state-of-the-art software platforms are on stream that provide real-time data and audit reporting capabilities for multiple sites, zones and sensor groups, all accessible by unlimited users


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