| | 8 HOSPITALITY BUSINESS REVIEWJANUARY - FEBRUARY 2025By Sharon Maloney, Portillo's Hot Dogs Food Safety and Quality Manager, Portillo'sMITIGATING RISK BY SIMPLIFYINGFOOD SAFETY REPORTS Starting in 1987, I have held multiple roles at Portillo's. I've seen the brand grow from a Chicagoland company with ten restaurants and 400 team members to a 10-state operation with 8,000 team members. As the Food Safety Manager, I am responsible for the food safety programs for our restaurants. The journey has been exhilarating, but it hasn't come without its challenges. With an increase in food safety inspections from regulatory agencies, internal reviews, and vendor reports, our managers were drowning in paperwork, confining them to their desks. We needed to revolutionize our food safety reporting process, simplifying it without compromising on vital details. Identifying Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Food SafetyAfter a thorough evaluation of KPIs, Portillo's opted for a two-tier system to funnel seven different reports into a single source of information. The first tier consists of reports that focus solely on food safety performance, encompassing health inspections, audits, and meticulous tracking of food and equipment temperatures. Tier two contains reports pertaining to standard business practices, including pest control reports, repair requests, and valuable guest comments. Setting the Bar for Food Safety Standards To maintain Portillo's legacy as an unrivaled leader, we hold ourselves to standards that go above and beyond regulatory requirements wherever possible. Portillo's has set ambitious standards across all its KPIs, resulting in clarity and focus for every aspect of food safety tracking. Creating the ScorecardPortillo's finance department handles copious amounts of data, so I collaborated with the financial planning and analysis (FP&A) team on the best solution. Their recommendation to utilize a tool we already had -- Microsoft Excel -- was a game-changing solution. Implementing a scorecard powered by Excel wouldn't burden anyone's budget. Our teams were already well-versed in the program, and it facilitated seamless online sharing. A triple win!The first version of the scorecard contained all the numerical values from the separate reporting groups. The numbers were clearly organized and legible, but a manager would still need to evaluate what the numbers meant operationally. The report was frustrating to read due to all that was included. It was time to iterate on what we'd build to produce a more effective report style. Leveraging conditional formatting within Excel was the solution. This automated the process to generate a color-coded heat map that provided colors that indicated the level of compliance at each restaurant. If the restaurant met or exceeded a standard, the corresponding cell would be marked with a "1" and turn green. If corrective action was required based on a report, a "2" would be marked, and the cell would turn red. Sharon MaloneyIN MY OPINION
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