Dive Brief:
- Food safety inspectors may find that the inconspicuousness of smartphones makes them a valuable tool for performing inspections, according to researchers at Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.
- Researchers note the Hawthorne Effect during food safety inspections, wherein people act in a different way than usual because they're aware they're being watched.
- When inspectors walk around food establishments with clipboards, the Hawthorne Effect may come into play. But because smartphones are so pervasive, inspectors who use them to track data and observations may go unnoticed by the employees they are monitoring.
Dive Insight:
The researchers also teamed up with a software developer to create a specialized smartphone app for food safety inspectors to document concealed observations, including a variety of checklists for different aspects of safety practices for food handling.
With their inconspicuousness and pervasiveness, it wouldn't be surprising if smartphones in time began replacing clipboards on inspectors' usual rounds at factories, grocery stores, and other food industry establishments.