14/January/09

Gala Retail Group Enters Strategic Partnership with Kelsius

Gala Retail Group Enters Strategic Partnership with Food Safety Specialist Kelsius

Leading Irish convenience store chain initiates new wireless food safety monitoring solution

Belfast, 14th January 2009 – Kelsius, the leading provider of automated HACCP compliance systems, has entered into a strategic partnership with one of Ireland’s major food retailers, the Gala Group. This initiative will see the roll-out of the Kelsius wireless food monitoring solution across the Gala Group’s 260 retail stores. The agreement follows the successful installation and trial of the Kelsius system at four Gala locations in 2008.
The Kelsius HACCP solution is a fully automated, paperless system which ensures full compliance with statutory food safety requirements. The Kelsius wireless temperature sensors monitor and record air and product temperatures in all refrigerated areas. If a measured temperature rises above a set limit an alert is triggered. This alert can be transmitted as a text message, email or via local visual and audible alarms. In addition to continuous temperature recording the Kelsius system also provides time and task management by recording key activities such as goods received, cleaning tasks and hot food probing. All records are securely stored on the Kelsius website and each retailer can access their records at any time from any Web-enabled PC or laptop. HACCP reports can also be automatically emailed or faxed, as required.
Fresh Food Manager for the Gala Group, John Ireland, explained, “In dealing with food safety, the system has to be paperless, more efficient and less labour intensive. By using Kelsius a store manager knows immediately if a freezer has malfunctioned and, in addition, the automatic monitoring and storing of records reduces risk, minimises errors and saves a huge amount of staff time, training and record taking.”
Currently, Gala stores in Tullamore Co. Offaly, Kilkee Co. Clare, Newross Co. Wexford and Letterkenny Co. Donegal are operating the Kelsius wireless food monitoring system. Further plans for installations in six Gala stores located in Cork and the Midlands are underway and Gala has since received enquiries about the Kelsius system from a number of other Gala retailers across Ireland.

“The Kelsius system is undergoing continuous improvement and updates to keep it in line with the latest legislation,” John Ireland continued. “This means any store using Kelsius will fully meet new, legal food safety requirements. The solution provides immediate resolution to problems; it eliminates the risk of human error during the food preparation process, it is easy to train new staff, and is also very easy to maintain. We believe that the Kelsius system puts Gala years ahead of competitors that still use paper-based systems.”
Kelsius CEO, Les Curran, said, “We are delighted to have entered this important partnership with the Gala Group. The Kelsius system makes life much simpler and safer for those retailers who are concerned about protecting both their customers and their brand.”


<< BACK