Customers who want to eat out in Sudbury, Canada can now use cell phones to learn more about their top choices.
While restaurants in Sudbury, Canada, have had to undergo inspections for some time now, a new service is allowing customers to be able to see the disclosed information about the results of those inspections by scanning QR codes located on the signage displayed in the business windows.
There are special decals being added to the windows of Sudbury restaurants featuring quick response codes.
The Direct Health Unit has now made the request to the restaurants to place the decals in the windows. While the basic information about the inspection results is available on the front of the decal for people to be able to see them, further disclosure is available by way of the scanning of QR codes, which can easily be done with a smartphone. The health inspection results are available when the barcode is scanned using any free reader app. This allows people to learn more about the details of the inspection, if they wish to discover more about where they will be eating.
The health unit’s Food Safety manager feels the QR codes provide better information access to consumers.
By using the quick response codes, people can discover the information they want about the restaurant’s cleanliness in a faster and easier way than would otherwise be available. Now, they can open up the information right onto their mobile devices, instead of having to look it up in advance.
The health unit manager, Cynthia Peacock-Rocca explained that this new barcode system provides “the consumer the information at hand to make the best decision possible [about] whether they choose to eat at that place or not.”
At the moment, the decal program that uses the QR codes is a voluntary one. Restaurants can choose not to post the barcodes if they want. Peacock-Rocca explained that if the signage was to be made into a mandatory program, it would have required that changes be made to the legislation in all of the municipalities served by her health unit. Instead, they made it possible for restaurants to choose to inform their customers about their cleanliness records from the official inspections.
