In any restaurant, you're required to maintain safe food temperatures. It's more than a legal requirement — it's what keeps customers and staff safe. But what about when there's nobody there and you have an equipment failure?
In just a few hours, a failed cold room can spoil your entire food stock, leaving your restaurant in a bad spot. Even worse, if your cold room malfunctions overnight but comes back on by morning, you might never even know. Then you're stuck with unsafe food and no idea that the food you're serving isn't safe.
Even if you do notice a problem with your cold storage, it interrupts your business. Food that isn't properly stored has to be disposed of — which means business is done for at least the day while you restock. It cuts into food cost and revenue for days.
So what can you do to prevent spoiled food?
A temperature logging system is the best thing you can do for your restaurant. Unlike a typical cold-room thermometer, these temperature loggers take and record readings every few minutes. Once a reading is taken, it's accessible in the cloud no matter where you are. You have recorded proof your food is always in the "safe zone."
That's not the only reason to put a temperature logger in cold storage. You can also prevent emergencies before they get to a critical level. Temperature loggers alert you the moment your cold storage reaches an unsafe level. Rather than waiting until food is unsafe, you know you need to fix the problem immediately.
Whether you have an overnight service, a general manager on call, or you take the alert yourself, it's your first defense against cold-room failure.
In food and hospitality, countless regulations keep food safe. For cold foods, 40°F or above is the danger zone. It takes as little as 20 minutes for bacteria to double their numbers on susceptible foods.
Food that needs to be refrigerated or frozen should never be left at room temperature for two hours or more. Any susceptible food needs refrigeration at 40°F or below. Frozen storage should be kept at 0°F. Dry storage needs stable temperatures between 50°F and 70°F with humidity at 15% or lower.
Food services should keep thermometers in cold storage (refrigerators and freezers) and in dry storage areas. Dry storage also needs humidity monitoring — most businesses use a hygrometer to measure relative humidity.
Thermometers rely on people to check them — leaving plenty of room for error. When it comes to food safety, there isn't any margin for error. Regulations typically require verification at least twice per day (start and end of day). That leaves hours of uncovered time where equipment can fail and go unnoticed.
The iMatrix sensor works just as well during transport as in restaurant storage. No wireless connection needed for readings — when food reaches its destination, connect the sensor to the cloud for a complete log of conditions throughout the journey. Critical for suppliers who must prove they maintained suitable conditions.
Getting a reading every minute far exceeds the twice-daily check requirement. You save time, money, labor, and valuable food stock.
Wireless temperature + humidity sensor with e-ink display. Reads VPD, heat index, and dew point.
View sensor →Dual-probe temperature sensor with humidity. For cold chambers and multi-zone walk-ins.
View sensor →External probe variant. Drop into freezer cores, liquid tanks, or hard-to-reach cold storage.
View sensor →Wireless door/window sensor. Catches walk-in doors left ajar before inventory loss mounts.
View sensor →The entry-level wireless temperature + humidity sensor. 3+ year battery, HACCP-ready logs.
View sensor →Cellular bridge that brings your sensors into iMatrix Cloud — alerts and logs from anywhere.
View gateway →The same NEO sensors move to reefer trailers and delivery vans — that's the Fleet Cold Chain side of iMatrix. One platform, different context.
Fleet Cold Chain →