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Kiwi Hospitality Businesses ‘chomping At The Bit’ To Invest In Food Safety Technology

A Queenstown company is going from strength to strength with its food safety app as New Zealand’s hospitality sector continues to invest in digital tools to achieve greater efficiency and sustainability.

The Kiwi-owned and operated ‘Chomp’ app – which launched in 2016 -- is increasing its reach with thousands of restaurants, cafes, bars, hotels, aged care and retail operators signed up around New Zealand.

Streamlining compliance is a priority for the food service industry and despite disruptions created by the pandemic, uptake of the app continues to grow.

Chomp’s work in the sector has been recognised -- late last year Chomp founder Paul Wilson was highly commended by the Ministry of Primary Industries for his work on food safety processes in the Significant Contribution to Food Safety Award category.

The easy-to-use app reduces administration time and simplifies compliance for chefs, kitchen staff and business owners, ensuring they are always audit-ready.

Paperwork is (literally) a thing of the past.

Chomp’s automated features include real-time status of food safety tasks, the ability to update the statutory business Food Control Plan at any time, training and maintenance reminders, and easy-to-access reporting to help with decision-making and improvements.

The app’s been developed with industry professionals to ensure it meets all legislative requirements of the New Zealand and Australian Food Safety Acts (FSANZ), both current and planned. Auditors have found it particularly helpful as it streamlines paper recording.

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When signing up for Chomp, businesses go through a simple onboarding process which makes them fully digital within an hour. A support team of Kiwi-based hospitality professionals provides one-on-one training and year-round support.

Queenstown-based Chomp founder Paul Wilson, with more than 30 years’ experience in the hospitality industry, says his motivation for developing Chomp was believing “there had to be a better way” to stay ahead of food safety requirements, training and paperwork.

“Being in the industry ourselves we knew full well the time and energy it takes businesses to stay compliant. With the increasing requirements of the Food Act we spent a lot of time just ensuring our records were up to date and accurate.

“We developed Chomp as a ‘by industry, for industry’ app and we’re thrilled to hear the difference it’s making to our colleagues. It effectively eliminates years of paperwork in a flash and is a game-changer in efficiency and sustainability.

“Our clients have moved from time-intensive paper-based food control plans to simple, streamlined digital plans which makes passing a yearly audit a far less time-consuming and stressful exercise.

“We were delighted to be highly commended at the MPI awards for our significant contribution to food safety and are working hard on further innovations and partnerships. Opportunities and developments coming up this year are really exciting.”

Most importantly, chefs who have worked with Chomp become ‘Chompions’.

“When they move from one kitchen to another they take Chomp with them like they’d take a great set of knives,” laughs Paul. “They’re our greatest advocates.”

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