Food safety programs
A plan in the drawer is not compliance
Plenty of businesses have a food safety program. Fewer have one that is doing anything. The difference is not the quality of the document.
Possession is not compliance
A requirement to have a program is also a requirement to comply with it. That obligation lands on the people doing the work, not on the folder in the office.
Which means a beautifully written program that nobody on the floor has read is not protecting you. If anything it is worse than a rough one that everybody follows, because it documents in detail all the things you are not doing.
The test
Ask whoever is on shift what the critical limit is for the step they monitor, and what they do if it is not met. Not as a trap — just ask.
If they cannot answer, the plan is not working. And that is usually not their fault. It generally means the program was written for an assessor rather than for the kitchen.
Why this happens
Most often because the program was bought rather than built. A template with a business name typed into it describes a generic operation, so the people in the actual operation cannot recognise their own work in it. They stop reading it, and it becomes a document that exists for inspections.
The second cause is handover. A consultant writes the program, emails the PDF, and nobody is ever walked through it. Six months later the person who received it has left.
What a working program looks like
The steps match what actually happens. The limits are ones the equipment can achieve. The records are ones people can realistically complete during service. Someone owns each part of it. And when something changes — a new product, new equipment, a new supplier — the program changes too.
What to do this week
Run the test. One question, one staff member. Whatever the answer is, you will have learned something you did not know this morning.
The short version
The Code requires compliance with the program, not possession of it. Ask a staff member what the critical limit is for their step — if nobody can answer, the plan is not working.
This is general information, not advice for your specific business. Check the requirements that apply to you against the current Food Standards Code and your own licence conditions.
The records for this
The free Food Safety Record Pack has fifteen everyday records including temperature, cooling, calibration and cleaning logs — with document control and a worked example on every sheet. No cost.
Read next
A record needs a date, a reading and a name. Complete it at the time, not at the end of the shift, and always record what you did about an out-of-limit result.
Read it ›Use by is a safety date and it is illegal to sell after it. Best before is a quality date and the food can still be sold if it is sound. Anything with a shelf life under two years must carry one of them.
Read it ›