Coborn’s Completes Logile Thermal Intelligence Solution Rollout

Solution created to improve food safety, quality of prepared foods

1/16/2024

Coborn's collaborated closely with Logile to fine-tune the latter's Thermal Intelligence solution design to work at all Coborn’s environments, including hot and cold food.

Midwestern independent grocer Coborns Inc. has completed its rollout of Logile’s new Thermal Intelligence solution to all of the retailer’s banners, which consist of Coborn’s, Cash Wise Foods, Marketplace Foods, Hornbacher’s, Tadych’s Marketplace Foods and Sullivan’s Foods, in all locations across Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Michigan. Coborn has been a Logile customer since 2012, using the company’s enterprise labor-planning and forecasting solutions. Its selection of Thermal Intelligence expands its Logile product footprint and partnership investment.

Wanting to improve its food safety capabilities and address existing temperature monitoring system limitations and challenges, including air-based temperature monitoring, cold food-only monitoring and frequent false alarms. Coborn's collaborated closely with Logile to fine-tune the Thermal Intelligence solution design to work at all Coborn’s environments, encompassing cold food, hot food, pharmacies and car washes.

Thermal Intelligence automates temperature taking and recording with wireless temperature sensors within a thermal-engineered fluid that imitates actual food temperatures and records them every 10 minutes, for both cold and hot foods. In contrast to standard systems that only measure ambient air temperatures, Thermal Intelligence uniquely monitors actual food temperatures 24/7 and alerts store staff to any deviations from proper holding temperature or items needing attention. The solution escalates notification up the chain if follow-up tasks aren’t done, to ensure that food safety issues are promptly corrected. Additionally, eliminating consistent overheating and over-chilling lowers energy costs and asset wear and tear.

According to Logile, its complete platform solution minimizes capital investment with a package including all hardware, software, maintenance, support, warranty and training, for an annual subscription fee.

“We have improved productivity and gained approximately two hours a day in redirection of labor by eliminating the manual temperature-taking and recording process with Logile Thermal Intelligence,” noted Kim Kockler, Coborn’s director of food safety. “We can now accurately monitor and manage hot-food temperatures in addition to cold foods, and can reliably keep our holding cases at the optimal temperatures for both food safety and food quality. By avoiding overheating our hot cases and holding both hot and cold cases at the right temperatures, we have less spoilage, reduced shrink and improved products to offer our customers. We now have the confidence that temperatures are always monitored with Logile’s 24/7 solution and that we are accurately measuring actual food temperatures, and not just air discharge temperature. We also anticipate reducing energy consumption and lowering our energy costs as approximately every one degree off the correct temperature costs us 3% to 4.5% additional energy usage, which adds up across the enterprise. Logile has been a great partner and gone above and beyond to meet our unique requirements.”

“Coborn’s is a true pioneer, having advanced food safety to a level unmatched in the retail industry,” added Rick Schlenker, co-founder and SVP of strategic sales at Southlake, Texas-based Logile. “We value our collaborative partnership, and the company is a testament to what is possible with a committed customer-first philosophy and innovative mindset. Coborn’s customer focus and continuous-improvement goals helped us refine our Thermal Intelligence solution to not only meet their needs, but to also provide a breakthrough solution for all retailers to improve food safety, compliance, temperature reporting and accuracy, and effectively protect their brands and customers.”

Representatives from Coborn’s and Logile discussed the companies’ experience with Thermal Intelligence during NRF 2024: Retail’s Big Show, running Jan. 14-16 in New York.

St. Cloud, Minn.-based Coborn’s Inc. has nearly 10,000 employees and 77 grocery stores. The business also operates fuel, liquor, and pharmacy locations. To support its more than 135 retail business units, Coborn’s operates its own central bakery, dry cleaning facility and grocery distribution center. Coborn’s Inc. is No. 84 The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2023 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America. Coborn’s was also recognized by Progressive Grocer Magazine as one of the Top 10 Regional Grocers in the United States in 2023.