Published 2025-06-17

Tougher competition, increased customer demands and stricter legal requirements. The food industry is experiencing increased pressure from many directions. This makes it more important than ever to have accurate and reliable temperature measurement of food in all possible environments. This in turn helps to ensure high food safety and reduce food waste.

Food belongs on the plate – not in the bin

Billions of tons of food are wasted around the world every year. As much as one third of all food produced ends up in the garbage. This is an unnecessary waste of resources and money. Broken cold chains and improper storage are some common causes of food going bad and being thrown away too early. Estimates show that restaurants and supermarkets, for example, can cut their costs by up to 30% by reducing their food waste.

Key metrics for good food safety

Whether in incoming goods and warehouse management, or production and processing, two measurement parameters are important at several stages: temperature and pH. In many cases, these measurements have a crucial impact on food safety in terms of quality and shelf life of raw materials and food that are particularly sensitive.

By regularly measuring food temperatures, you can identify anomalies at an early stage and quickly take action to ensure an unbroken cold chain. This avoids the growth of bacteria and the need to throw away food, which can cost you a lot of time and money. We offer a wide range of measuring instruments for easy spot checks of temperature, pH and frying oil quality.

Find the right measuring instrument for your food controls

Get an overview of all food climates

To keep raw materials fresh, ensure quality and maintain an unbroken cold chain, temperature monitoring is an effective and reliable tool. At the same time, it helps you meet current industry regulatory requirements. With Testo’s data loggers and smart monitoring systems, you can continuously monitor temperatures in transportation, warehouses, refrigerators, freezers, heating cabinets and production – both for internal follow-up and for regulatory requirements. This improves food safety and can help reduce food waste, saving money and benefiting the planet.

Explore our popular testo 174 series data loggers

Popular calibration with food customers

By calibrating measuring equipment with us, you get answers to how “correct” measurement values your equipment shows compared to values from a highly accurate reference equipment. In the lab in Gothenburg, we perform accredited calibration of food instruments from all manufacturers. With quality assured methods, mostly standard calibration for the food industry is issued at the measuring points -18, ±0 and +60 °C (it is also possible to choose your own measuring points).

One service that is increasingly in demand is field calibration. Our calibration technicians from our offices in Gothenburg and Uppsala are constantly on the move, calibrating measurement equipment at customer sites – without disrupting their operations. Our field technicians calibrate everything from blast freezers at -30 °C to large baking ovens at +225 °C.

Field calibration of meters in transport

Properly tempered food transportation is important to maintain high quality and safety of raw materials and food even during longer shipments. Whether food transportation takes place during winter or summer. Requests from customers have led us to expand our offer to perform calibrations in transportation spaces on their premises. We calibrate both integrated sensors and mobile transport loggers – from all manufacturers – in road, rail, sea and air transportation. We see a clear trend: more and more people are realizing the value of reviewing and taking a holistic approach to food transport conditions.

Published 2025-07-01

Proper storage of products in the life sciences and food industry is directly linked to maintaining your own and your customers’ quality standards and complying with applicable laws. In this text, we highlight how monitoring the storage climate, together with measures such as temperature mapping and temperature alarms, help protect sensitive products.

Shelving systems, packing and picking, inflows and outflows, fill rates… Facility managers, operations managers and warehouse managers have many factors to consider to create stable and efficient storage of sensitive products. One important aspect is that climates are adapted to different products. Therefore, it is crucial that monitoring systems are installed, for example, in cold rooms where temperature-sensitive goods are stored.

Challenges in life sciences

In life sciences – such as the pharmaceutical industry, biotechnology and laboratory operations – many temperature-sensitive goods require perfectly temperate climates. These range from vaccines to biological samples, which can also be sensitive to light and humidity. Here are some common challenges:

• Temperature deviations: many substances need to be stored in environments with strict temperature monitoring, e.g. within ranges such as 2-8°C or around -90°C. Even small deviations can render some products unusable.
• Impact of humidity and light: some chemicals and biological materials degrade in high humidity or UV exposure.
• Refrigeration and freezer failures: technical failures or power outages can lead to the loss of sensitive products.
• Cross-contamination: improper separation can negatively affect sensitive materials.
• Requirements from authorities: life science is heavily regulated by e.g. GMP, GDP, EMA, which places demands on documentation and traceability.

Challenges in food

Food products are sensitive to both temperature and humidity. Improper storage can quickly cause bacterial growth and spoil the goods. An effective solution is to install a cold room monitoring system. Here are some common challenges in the food industry:

• Inadequate cold chains: food must be kept within precise temperature limits at all times throughout the supply chain.
• Wrong humidity: low humidity dries out foods, while too high humidity levels can create mold and bacteria growth.
• Poor air circulation and gas environment: many foods require a modified atmosphere (e.g. low oxygen content) to keep longer.
• Poor stock management: without proper rotation (first in, first out), older products can sit around for too long.
• Traceability: regulations such as HACCP and EU regulations require control and documentation at every stage.

How to ensure optimal climate conditions

Protecting sensitive products requires both reliable technology and clear procedures. Here are some measures you should implement:

1. Monitoring with temperature alarms: install data loggers with temperature (and humidity if needed) sensors connected to a monitoring system. The system logs data continuously and alerts automatically in case of anomalies, via SMS and/or email.
2. Quality assured equipment: use calibrated measurement technology in cold rooms, freezers and other storage environments. Calibration ensures that your equipment gives reliable readings.
3. Temperature mapping: performs mapping in both winter and summer to identify temperature variations within storage areas.
4. Backup and emergency solutions: install backup power systems such as UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) and have access to dry ice or cooling gel in case of emergency.
5. Organized and hygienic storage: apply good storage practices (GSP) – label clearly, separate incompatible substances, keep clean and prevent pests.

Published 2024-06-13

Summer and sun, nice and carefree days – if you have a safe monitoring system in place and keep track of food temperatures in your cold and freezer rooms. So that you don’t suddenly find yourself with unusable raw materials and inedible food in the middle of summer.

A power cut, a door ajar, too many goods in the same space… there are several risky scenarios for your cold stores that are difficult to anticipate, prevent and detect in time. Especially in summer. Fewer staff and holiday replacements mean that supervision is not kept up with or is forgotten. Instead of keeping an eye on temperatures, it’s about servicing the rush of customers.

Avoid unnecessary additional costs

High outdoor temperatures in summer make it warmer indoors, which in turn can lead to higher temperatures in food storage areas. If you are not observant and quickly detect excessive temperatures, you may be forced to discard large quantities of produce and food. This is an immediate, unexpected and unnecessary additional cost, and it can be disruptive to business. In other words, you may have obvious problems delivering raw materials or offering food to customers in the near future before you have time to get home and restock.

Fortunately, there are various solutions for easy and reliable monitoring of cold stores. Peace of mind when food storage facilities are unmanned or when you and your colleagues simply don’t have the time to check the space from time to time. Choose the measurement solution that suits you best: data loggers from the testo Smart Connect or Celsicom monitoring systems.

Simple and flexible monitoring with alarms

It’s easy to get started with logs from both systems. You don’t need to install any software, just open a browser, create an account and make a few settings – then the loggers are ready to start measuring. You can check current values remotely whenever you want.

An important detail: the loggers automatically send alarms via SMS or email if any cooling or freezing temperature approaches a critical limit. The alarm function can be linked to one or more of your employees and an external refrigeration company that is on call.

Published 2024-06-25

Since 2016, energy engineer Billy Axelsson has been using data loggers from the Celsicom measurement system to remotely monitor various indoor climates in Kil municipality’s buildings. The loggers enable more efficient work and reduce energy consumption and the risk of costly breakdowns.

Billy Axelsson works at the property unit with responsibility for energy and ventilation. It is a small job considering that the municipality operates on about 60,000 square meters in about 50 buildings. These buildings house commercial kitchens, schools, nurseries, leisure facilities, care homes – and a range of other businesses.

An important part of the real estate unit’s work consists of remote monitoring of various climate parameters in different environments, in order to analyze important measurements on a daily basis and schedule measures or, if necessary, respond immediately. Measured variables such as temperature and humidity are monitored with data loggers from the first generation of the Celsicom measurement system (the loggers are connected to base stations) and data loggers from the second generation of the same system (these loggers have their own connection via the Narrow Band Internet of Things on their own frequency in the mobile phone network). In total, there are 107 measurement sites in 27 buildings.

Celsicom – an important backup
The fact that Celsicom was chosen eight years ago was mostly a coincidence.

– We have some comprehensive systems for monitoring and controlling heating and ventilation in our buildings. But I felt the need to have some kind of backup to be able to have continuous control and get alerts. “At one point I bought a thermal imaging camera from Nordtec and was a bit curious about what other fun things you had,” says Billy.

That’s when he discovered and chose to test Celsicom. Since day one, the remote monitoring system has greatly facilitated the work of the real estate unit. Above all, the ease of getting started and using the Celsicom logs is appreciated. The automatic limit alerts via SMS or email are also praised. And the fact that the purchase of each logger – including the subscription cost for storage and analysis in the Celsiview cloud service – is a modest investment.

Automatically alerts in good time
The real estate unit has found a variety of applications for the Celsicom loggers. Here are some examples of what they are used for.

– If a chiller breaks down or starts leaking refrigerant, the chiller can continue to run while the temperature starts to rise. This can quickly be seen from diagrams in Celsiview.

– Another great advantage is the possibility of receiving an alarm if, for example, a large meat fridge breaks down. Then you have to act quickly to avoid having to throw away goods worth SEK 100,000 the next day.

Celsicom loggers are also used in schools to ensure a good indoor climate in classrooms, to monitor temperature and humidity in music rooms and to prevent damage to stringed instruments. The remote monitoring also covers four pellet plants. There, Celsicom loggers simply alert you if pellet levels are approaching a critical level and it’s time to refill.

Preventing an expensive mishap
– I have also made a little invention of my own with one of the latest Celsicom loggers that has moisture ratio sensors (Celsicom MM611B). I’ve connected it to a screw in a wooden plank lying on the floor of a basement where we have very little supervision. And last winter there was a water leak from the heating system! I was alerted within an hour that the moisture content was too high in the wooden plank and was able to go there to quickly fix the flood and leak. It could have been really expensive if I hadn’t had that monitoring,” says Billy.

Celsicom also eliminates time spent traveling around checking conditions in different properties.

– Instead, I always have updated readings via the Celsiview cloud service on the home page of my computer. I can quickly see if something seems strange and can easily see how things are developing, and then decide whether I or someone else needs to go to the scene.

Good information and data
Celsiview is also a good tool for sharing information and providing input for various improvements. For example, staff in commercial kitchens can log in and have a ‘watch’ function to check temperatures in cold rooms and freezers in real time for their own control.

One of the property unit’s major challenges in the future is to make operations more efficient by, for example, reducing electricity and district heating. It’s about reducing energy use as much as possible without sacrificing a comfortable indoor climate. In this respect too, deployed Celsicom loggers are valuable tools.

– It is very easy to quickly see on your mobile phone, tablet or computer where the temperature is a bit too high and can be turned down to reduce heating costs. “In an electrically heated school that is in storage, I have Celsicom connected to the heating system to be able to keep the temperature as low as possible without it freezing in the winter,” says Billy Axelsson and notes:

– We save a lot of money by having sensors monitoring the radiator groups.