The west of Ireland software startup Blocworx have launched an innovative food safety management solution to help businesses in the food industry handle the increased requirements for safety compliance and customer tracing in the era of COVID-19.
The no-code solution can help hotels, restaurants, caterers, and food producers progress their digitalisation to better meet the need for compliance with HACCP and COVID-19 Safety requirements.
The hospitality industry, which naturally involves large numbers of customers coming and going, has been one of the sources of concern about its potential to spread COVID-19.
In order to combat this, regulations have been introduced, and new standards adopted by the sector as businesses reopen, which keep people safer, but also add to the administrative burden in an industry already laden with paperwork.
Adrian De Cléir, CEO and Founder of Blocworx, said despite the current crisis, there is still a strong appetite for “digital transformation” in businesses, with many wanting to modernise how they operate.
“Which makes sense, because now more than ever, businesses are trying to find ways of saving money and making their processes more efficient.”
The COVID-19 specific features available in Blocworx’s solution include tracking customers as they come and go from the premises, health sign-offs for employees before they return to work, and the tracking of additional health requirements such as hand hygiene, daily cleaning routines and kitchen management.
Furthermore, the innovative software can be linked up to infrared thermometers to track and record customers and employee’s temperature checks if required.
All of this will not only help to reassure customers that it is safe to eat out again, but increase efficiency and turnover at restaurants, pubs, hotels, and other food businesses at a time when they are struggling.
Digital Transformation
Headquartered at Annacotty Business Park in Limerick, Blocworx has created a cost-effective software solution, which has gained significant recognition in a short space of time for its ability to cut out vast swathes of paperwork out of business processes.
By using digital tracking software in a single platform to not only follow your businesses processes, but automate and optimise them, it can avoid duplication of effort, ensure reports are accurate and timely, and generally save a great deal of time and effort on administration.
Blocworx’s cloud-based software is prized for its adaptability, and the fact that no coding is required, which makes it easy to utilise in any industry, and simple for customers to customise for themselves.
The platform contains built-in features such as custom report generation, data analytics and data displays, email alerts, user role hierarchy, custom forms, fields and rules.
Its adaptability has already made it popular in a range of industries including healthcare, film & screen skills training, manufacturing, construction, and local sports clubs amongst others.
Industry specific software can be “cumbersome, expensive and sometimes cluttered with unnecessary features,” Adrian De Cléir says, while getting a bespoke solution made just for your business can run up a large bill.
“We offer something unique, which is a fast, clean and simple approach to digital transformation. In the time it takes for an IT company to spec up a project, we have a working version for them to try out.”
At the start of this year, Blocworx had been planning to launch their Platform in April, but the pandemic forced them to alter their plans.
“By March we knew it wasn’t going to be a typical product launch so instead we opted to repurpose our solutions for contact tracing and Covid-19 related tracking purposes.”
And while these COVID-19 specific features have been a source of great interest to food businesses, Blocworx have not lost sight of the goal to help businesses across Ireland to move into the digital era.
“Our goal at Blocworx is for all business to realise that digital transformation does not cost the world, allows organisations to adapt to market changes much quicker and can transform their business without compromising quality & service.”
