Digital solutions for a sustainable future

Vikan's Site Survey program sends experts to assess hygiene and food safety challenges at your worksite and provide or recommend solutions.

These Site Surveys have always been of great value to both our customers and to us. Customers use Site Surveys to prepare for upcoming audits or reviews, select new tools, or create colour-coding programs. While on-site, our experts take an in-depth and confidential view of your operations that allows us to offer you the best support and advice we can. This view also allows us to drive new and improved product developments tailored to your industry's needs.

However—during the Covid-19 pandemic, travel stopped, and food producers largely weren’t allowing guests on their premises. We didn't want our Site Survey program to end, so we leaned on our creative, innovative spirit and devised a solution—Virtual Site Surveys.

Using Microsoft HoloLens, we can see facilities through your eyes in a blend of physical reality and digital content. This Mixed Reality (MR) environment is perfect for conducting a remote review of your operations, identifying potential challenges, and recommending a plan to help ensure ongoing food safety and hygiene.

Vikan Virtual Site Survey in a sustainable perspective

The Virtual Site Survey concept helped to solve a daunting issue during the pandemic, but it also has another huge advantage—a possible reduction in our collective environmental footprint. This service, which doesn't require travel, is a great alternative to our in-person Site Surveys.

Transportation is a major contributor of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide emissions, according to the United Nations’ website. Road vehicles contribute the most to this pollution because of the use of petroleum-based products in internal combustion engines. However, emissions from ships and planes continue to grow. Transportation accounts for nearly 25% of global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, and trends point to this only continuing to increase. (*)

We know that it is impossible for us (and the rest of the world) to cut carbon dioxide emissions or fuel use completely. But, we believe that being aware of our impact will lead to more consideration, and thus, lower consumption.

Spending less time traveling helps reduce our carbon footprint. With this online service, you can enjoy the benefits of a Site Survey while causing minimal carbon dioxide emissions. (**)

Case study – traveling and lodging for a standard site survey compared to a Virtual Site Survey

Case 1: In-person Site Survey at a customer in Cedar Rapids, USA vs. a Virtual Site Survey

In this example, Global Hygiene Specialist Deb Smith and a sales specialist from our Indianapolis US office will conduct the Site Survey.

Deb’s travel:

• Diesel car from her home to Heathrow Airport and back
• Flight from Heathrow Airport to Chicago Airport and back
• Diesel car from Chicago Airport to Cedar Rapids and back
• Hotel in Cedar Rapids for 1 night, 1 bedroom
• Daily trip from the hotel to the customer, and back, 10 miles

Carbon footprint: 2.23 tons of CO2e

Sales rep’s travel:

• Petrol car from Indianapolis to Cedar Rapids and back
• Hotel in Cedar Rapids for 1 night, 1 bedroom
• Daily trip from the hotel to the customer and back, 10 miles

Carbon footprint: 0.44 tons of CO2e

Total carbon footprint: 2.67 tons of CO2e

Compare this to shipping a HoloLens from Indianapolis to Cedar Rapids and back, which has a total carbon footprint of 0.00004 tons.

Case 2: In-person Site Survey at a customer in Lisieux, France vs. a Virtual Site Survey

In this example, Global Hygiene Specialist Deb Smith and a sales specialist from our office in France will conduct the Site Survey.

Team Travel:

• Deb: Diesel car from her home to Heathrow Airport and back
• Deb: Flight from Heathrow Airport to Paris Airport and back
• Sales specialist will pick up Deb; diesel car from Paris Airport to Lisieux and back
• Both: Hotel in Lisieux for 1 night, 2 bedrooms
• Both: Daily trip from the hotel to the customer and back, 10 miles

Total carbon footprint: 0.46 tons of CO2e

Compare this to shipping a HoloLens from Skive, Denmark to Lisieux and back, which has a total carbon footprint of 0.00008 tons.

(***)

This graph shows the difference in tons of CO2e consumed by Virtual Site Surveys compared to the two cases described above.

Vikan awarded for the innovative concept

The HoloLens by Microsoft is used for many different things in various industries, however, we were the first to use it as a virtual Site Survey tool. In recognition of this novel application and the reduced environmental impact it delivers, we were awarded “Best New Product/Service of 2022” by The Society of Food Hygiene and Technology (SoFHT).

We are very proud of this acknowledgment, as innovation is one of the core values at Vikan.

* https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/causes-effects-climate-change

** Please note that this service is not yet available in all markets.

*** Calculated from https://tradewater.us/calculate/ and https://www.carboncare.org/en/co2-emissions-calculator