Food safety checklists and records

What is a food safety checklist?

A food safety checklist is the record a kitchen, factory or bar keeps to show that the controls in its food safety management system are being carried out: temperatures checked, deliveries inspected, surfaces cleaned, allergens controlled and pests kept out. The Food Standards Agency describes a food safety management system as a written set of processes, checks, rules and records, and says it must be based on the HACCP principles.

The forms in this category cover that whole cycle. The HACCP plan sets out the hazards and the critical control points. Day to day, the fridge and food temperature log, kitchen opening and closing checklist and goods-in inspection checklist prove the plan is being followed. The allergen matrix, traceability record and product recall template cover what you sell and how you act when something goes wrong.

Kitchen equipment servicing sits under retail and hospitality, for example the kitchen equipment maintenance checklist.

Source: FSA: HACCP.

Which food safety records are a legal requirement in the UK?

Food businesses must put in place, implement and maintain a permanent procedure based on the HACCP principles. That is Article 5 of retained Regulation (EC) No 852/2004, and keeping records proportionate to the size of the business is part of it. Small caterers in England and Wales often meet this with the FSA's Safer food, better business pack, which includes its own diary of checks. Larger operations write a full HACCP plan. Either way, an environmental health officer will ask to see your records on inspection, and they feed your food hygiene rating.

The rules that most often turn up in these forms are:

Cold holding

In England, food that needs temperature control must not be kept above 8°C. Most kitchens set their fridge target lower so there is a margin.

Hot holding

Cooked or reheated food kept hot for service must be held at or above 63°C.

Allergens

You must tell customers if food contains any of the 14 listed allergens. Food prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) needs a label with a full ingredients list and the allergens emphasised, under Natasha's Law.

Traceability

You must be able to identify who supplied you with a food and which businesses you supplied, one step back and one step forward.

Withdrawals and recalls

If you believe food you have supplied is unsafe, you must start to withdraw it and inform the authorities, and recall it from consumers if it may have reached them.

Pests

Adequate procedures must be in place to control pests.

Sources: Regulation (EC) No 852/2004, Article 5, Food Safety and Hygiene (England) Regulations 2013, Schedule 4, GOV.UK: Allergen guidance for food businesses, FSA: Introduction to allergen labelling for PPDS food, Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, Article 18, Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, Article 19, Regulation (EC) No 852/2004, Annex II Chapter IX, GOV.UK: Safer food, better business and FSA: Food hygiene rating scheme.

How to write a HACCP plan that works on the line

A HACCP plan goes wrong when it is written once for the inspector and never matches what the kitchen does. Build it from a walk through the real process, from delivery to service, and keep the steps in the order food actually moves. The FSA lists what the HACCP principles ask of you:

Identify hazards

What could go wrong at each step: bacteria growing in the chiller, allergen cross contact at the prep bench, glass or metal in a product.

Find the critical control points

The steps where a check stops the hazard, such as cooking to temperature or chilling within a set time.

Set limits

A number you can measure, such as a core temperature or a maximum time out of the fridge.

Monitor

Who checks, how and how often, written on the form they will fill in.

Corrective action

What you do when a limit is missed, decided in advance so staff do not improvise.

Verify and keep records

Check the system is working and keep records of the checks and how you put things right.

Source: FSA: HACCP.

What a good temperature log and goods-in check record

The most common gap an inspector finds is not a warm fridge, it is a log with no corrective action next to the warm reading. A useful temperature log records the unit, the reading, the time, who took it and, if it is out of range, what was done with the food and the unit. Probe checks on cooked and reheated food sit on the same record, so cooking, cooling and hot holding are all in one place.

At goods in, check and record the temperature of chilled and frozen deliveries, the condition of the packaging, use by and best before dates, and the supplier and batch details you need for traceability. Reject anything that fails and photograph it, so the credit note is not a debate. The opening and closing checklist then picks up the daily routine: hand wash basins stocked, probes cleaned and checked, food covered and labelled, bins emptied and the cleaning schedule signed. The FSA's guidance on cleaning effectively covers the two stage clean and disinfect process these checks rely on.

Sources: Food Safety and Hygiene (England) Regulations 2013, Schedule 4 and FSA: Cleaning effectively in your business.

Gas, extract and cellar checks in commercial kitchens and bars

Food safety inspections tend to stop at the food, but the plant behind it is where kitchens most often have serious incidents. Gas work, including inspection and maintenance, must be done by a Gas Safe registered engineer. HSE's catering guidance says annual inspections are a reasonable minimum, and where a type B appliance relies on extraction there should be an interlock that cuts the gas if the airflow fails. The commercial kitchen gas safety checklist records the appliances, the interlock test and the engineer's details, and it complements your fire risk assessment.

HSE notes that kitchen fires in extract systems usually start when heat or flame ignites a build-up of grease and fat in the ductwork. TR19 Grease, published by BESA, is the UK specification for cleaning kitchen extract systems, with the cleaning interval set by how heavily the kitchen is used. A TR19 kitchen extract cleaning record captures the parts cleaned, the deposit thickness tests and before and after photos for each visit.

For pubs and bars, a cellar management checklist covers cellar temperature, line cleaning, stock rotation, cooling equipment and the security of gas cylinders. Set the temperature and line cleaning interval your brewer or supplier asks for; the form's defaults are a starting point you can edit.

Sources: HSE: Gas safety in catering and hospitality (CAIS23), HSE: Ventilation of kitchens in catering establishments (CAIS10), Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, regulation 3 and BESA: TR19 Air and Grease toolkit.

Pest control records and bait station logs

Most food businesses use a pest control contractor, and the visit report is the evidence an officer will look for. A good pest control report records the areas inspected, any signs of activity, proofing defects found (gaps under doors, open drains, holes around pipes), the treatments used and the recommendations for you to act on. Biocides such as rodenticides are regulated products, so the report should name what was used and where.

The rodent bait station inspection log adds the station by station picture: each station pinned on a plan, the activity found, the bait laid and any signs of non-target animals, so you can see whether activity is rising or falling between visits.

Sources: Regulation (EC) No 852/2004, Annex II Chapter IX and HSE: Using biocides.

Keeping food safety records on a phone or tablet

Paper diaries get wet, go missing and are filled in at the end of a shift from memory. With SiteSurvey, staff complete each check on an iPhone, iPad or Android device, offline in a cellar or walk-in chiller if there is no signal, with the reading, a photo with annotation where something is wrong, a note on the corrective action and a signature. Each completed check becomes a branded PDF report you can show an inspector, an area manager or a client.

You can edit any form here to match your own HACCP plan, add your own units and limits, or build your own form in the form builder. Every form page shows every question and lets you try the form live first.