Illustrative dataEvery school in the district on one screen
A nutrition director sees every kitchen's walk-ins, reach-ins and milk coolers in one place. Each alert names the school and the unit.
TemperatureWise for K-12 school nutrition
Temperature monitoring for school kitchens
Know on Friday night, not Monday morning. A school freezer that fails after the last lunch on Friday can sit for 60 hours before anyone opens the door. TemperatureWise reads it every 15 minutes, all weekend.
- School kitchens
- District central kitchens
- Nutrition directors
- Facilities teams
60+ hoursbetween a Friday afternoon failure and Monday morning
60+ hoursbetween a Friday afternoon failure and Monday's first shiftRenergy failure-mode reference
2 to 5 daysfor a defrost fault to ice a freezer coil, about one weekendRenergy failure-mode reference
96 readingsa day from each sensor, weekends and breaks includedTemperatureWise, every 15 minutes
What you get
Four things TemperatureWise does for a school district
Illustrative data
Illustrative dataAlerts that reach someone on a weekend
Email first, then a text, then a phone call, to the people you name, in order. A Saturday fault reaches a person instead of an empty building.
Illustrative dataA temperature record that keeps itself
A reading every 15 minutes, kept indefinitely, including nights, weekends and breaks. It is there for a state review or a health inspection.
One gateway per school, off the district network
LoRa radio passes through walk-in panels, so the gateway can sit in the kitchen office. With cellular, it does not touch the district network at all.
How one gateway covers a multi-room siteWhere it goes wrong
Five ways a school kitchen loses temperature
Each follows from how a school kitchen runs: busy for six or seven hours, then empty for evenings, weekends and breaks.
How it fails
The freezer that fails on Friday is found on Monday
A defrost fault ices the coil, and each day ends a little warmer. That takes 2 to 5 days, about the length of a weekend, and nobody is in the building to see it.
- How fast
- 2 to 5 days
- What the log shows
- Each defrost ends a little warmer than the last
- The gap
- 60+ hours, Friday afternoon to Monday
How it fails
Older equipment on a capital budget cycle
School equipment tends to be older, because it is replaced on capital budget cycles. A condenser clogged with dust has to work harder each week, and the box holds, then slowly stops holding.
- How fast
- Weeks
- What the log shows
- The average creeps up and recovery slows
- How to tell
- It warms with the kitchen's heat by day
How it fails
The milk cooler has to recover between lunch periods
The lid stays open through each lunch period while hundreds of hands reach in. A healthy cooler recovers before the next period. A weak one never quite catches up.
- How fast
- Each lunch period
- What the log shows
- Recovery after each period takes longer
- How to tell
- It is not back down before the next period
How it fails
Summer shutdown moves the defrost clock
Equipment switched off for the summer comes back with its defrost clock out of step with the day. A defrost can then land in the middle of lunch, and nobody knows to reset it.
- When
- The first weeks after a restart
- What the log shows
- A defrost bump at the wrong time of day
- How to tell
- The same bump, at the same wrong hour, every day
How it fails
When everyone shares the walk-in, nobody owns its alarm
Food service runs the kitchen, custodial or maintenance staff run the building, and the built-in alarm belongs to neither. It gets silenced, and a silenced beeper tells nobody.
- When
- Any failure, any day
- What the log shows
- Whatever went wrong, with nobody told
- TemperatureWise
- Alerts named people, in order
Pricing and payback
One school kitchen costs $1,775 up front and $1,800 a year
Two walk-ins, two reach-ins and a milk cooler
| Item | Once | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| 7 LoRa sensors at $200 | $1,400 | |
| Gateway for a mid-sized site | $250 | |
| Cellular connection | $125 | $50 |
| Monitoring, 7 sensors at $250 | $1,750 | |
| Total | $1,775 | $1,800 |
Two sensors in each walk-in, one in each reach-in and the milk cooler. Cellular keeps it off the district network. No extra charge for the dashboard, alerts, reporting or setup. Price list of 1 September 2026.
One saved weekend has to be worth $1,800
That is the whole test. The yearly fee for one school is $1,800, about $21 a sensor a month.
A walk-in freezer stocked for the week is usually worth more than that on its own. The record also stands in for the handwritten readings staff take each school day.
Want a detailed calculation for your own site? The full calculator on the TemperatureWise page takes your rooms, sensors and connection.
Open the full calculatorHow it works
Three steps, nothing drilled, no shutdown
We plan it from your floor plan
TemperatureWise marks where each sensor and the gateway go before anything ships.
You place the sensors and plug in the gateway
Magnet, adhesive pad or one screw. The gateway goes into an ordinary socket.
It learns each unit in the first week
TemperatureWise learns each unit's defrost pattern and sets alerts around it, so a normal defrost is not an alarm.
LoRa radio through walls and walk-in panels. Nothing drilled.
Every 15 minutesReadings kept indefinitely
Rated to -40°F (-40°C)Battery lasts 5 to 8 years
Temperature and humidityFrom one sensor
The rules
The food safety program USDA asks every school to run
US · 7 CFR 210.13
Every school food authority keeps a written food safety program covering anywhere food is stored, prepared or served. Each school gets at least two food safety inspections a school year.
Read 7 CFR 210.13USDA · the 2009 HACCP rule
USDA's final rule bases that program on HACCP principles, which include monitoring, corrective action and record keeping.
Read the USDA final ruleMissouri · one state's log list
Missouri lists refrigerator and freezer temperature logs as daily, and asks for records from the 3 prior years to be kept.
Read Missouri's listOther states publish their own lists. Canadian school food programs are set by each province. TemperatureWise produces the record; the review and sign-off stay with your program.
Common questions
How do schools monitor walk-in freezers over weekends and breaks?
With a sensor in each walk-in that reports every 15 minutes and alerts named people when something goes wrong. TemperatureWise keeps reporting through weekends and summer breaks, when nobody is in the building.
How much does temperature monitoring cost for a school district?
About $1,775 up front and $1,800 a year for one school kitchen with seven TemperatureWise sensors and cellular. Ten kitchens like it come to about $17,750 up front and $18,000 a year.
Does TemperatureWise need the district's Wi-Fi?
No. Each school's gateway can send its readings over cellular, so nothing touches the district network. If the district prefers, the gateway can use a wired or Wi-Fi connection instead, at no extra charge.
Does continuous monitoring replace the temperature logs our state asks for?
Partly. It replaces the handwritten reading with a recorded one, but not the program. Your state decides what counts as a log and who signs it, so check with your state agency before retiring a paper form.
Does TemperatureWise monitor classroom temperatures?
No. TemperatureWise is for food: walk-ins, reach-ins, milk coolers and freezers. Classroom comfort is a heating and cooling question, which Renergy covers with ACWise.
Proof
Case studies at a glance
- Philadelphia · April 2025$150,000freezer, 53 hours of warningA failed defrost timer, fixed in one visit. $0 lost.Read the case study
- Philadelphia · June to August 2025$450,000freezer, 27 days of warningTime to find old parts and move the stock to a reefer first.Read the case study
- Mississauga · December 2025$125,000reefer, 5 h 45 min of warningStopped and did not restart. Stock value estimated.Read the case study
See what your coldest room has been doing
Send us 30 days of readings from one room, or let us put a sensor in it. We will show you what it was doing before anyone noticed. No purchase needed.