The Monika story
Monika is a family business spanning three generations, three decades (1990-2020), and three continents (UK/Europe, Australia and the Middle East).
While our technology has evolved over this time, our fundamental purpose has remained the same: to make it easy for our customers to keep their food and their customers safe.
New food safety act mandates temperature checks
30 years ago, when the Food Safety Act 1990 was introduced in the UK, it became compulsory to keep records of actions taken to keep food safe. This included recording temperatures of food in storage 2 to 3 times a day.
At that time, the Gamble family business operated as kitchen contractors and hospitality equipment suppliers in the UK. With this new legislation, they quickly changed direction when they saw a need for technology to help businesses manage the onerous task of manual temperature checks.
First wireless temperature monitoring system
The Gambles connected a console via electricity mains that networked all fridges, freezers and coldrooms on site and collected temperature records that had previously been captured by hand, if at all. Monika’s technology was the first wireless solution on the market, and the first to use a food simulant rather than just measuring air temperature.
Our technology was quite revolutionary – we won awards for our system because it overcame the basic problem of wiring up infrastructure to get data back to a central console. Other systems had to be wired up from every unit, which meant fridges couldn’t be moved without changing the network.
Introduction of hand probing for food production
Monika grew quickly – some of our first clients were major hospitals and a national supermarket chain – and it wasn’t long before we introduced hand probing to facilitate temperature recording through the entire production process, from storage to service. That led to us inventing the first wireless probe and handheld reader to work with it.
This laid the foundations for Monika’s next innovation: software for managing routine food safety and hygiene tasks such as cleaning, sanitation, stock rotation and pest control.
Adding tasks for a complete food safety system
In 2013, Monika released its first complete digital food safety system, which brought together temperature control and task management for a more holistic approach to safety and hygiene.
Fast forward to today and we have refined our technology further with our latest product range, MonikaPrime for large enterprises and MonikaGo for smaller operators. This range uses Zigbee wireless technology, cloud computing rather than on-site servers, and replaces the bulkier hand reader for our Smart PA – a rugged touchscreen device with a similar feel to the smartphones of today.
Three generations on, Monika Pty Ltd is led here in Australia by Paul Gamble, son of UK Chairman Tim Gamble. We are arguably the leading brand in food safety technology in Australia, and the number of clients who choose Monika continues to grow every year.