A sample page of the actual document
A proper opening check, done before the first customer or the first food is touched, is your strongest defence against a poor Food Hygiene Rating, a customer falling ill, or an enforcement notice. The Environmental Health Officer scores how well you manage safety every day, not just on inspection day, so a signed daily record that proves you check temperatures, allergens and sickness exclusion is what protects the rating and the business.
Food Standards Agency, Safer Food Better Business (SFBB) for caterers: Opening and closing checks, Temperature, Chilling, Personal hygiene/fitness to work, and Prove it (probe calibration) safe methods. FSA "Chilling food correctly" and "Fitness to work" business guidance (48-hour exclusion after symptoms stop). Food Safety and Hygiene (England) Regulations 2013 and Regulation (EC) 852/2004 (8 degrees C chilled limit; temperature control). Food Information Regulations 2014 and retained EU Regulation 1169/2011, Annex II (14 allergens); FSA best-practice written allergen guidance, March 2025 (Owen's Law not yet law; government evaluation began spring 2026). HSE Approved Code of Practice L8 and HSG274 Part 2 (flush outlets unused for 7+ days at least weekly).
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What’s on it
Everything that matters, nothing that does not. Here is the full list, exactly as it appears on the template.
Good to know
The legal chilled-storage limit in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is 8 degrees C, but the FSA tells you to set fridges to 5 degrees C or below. The gap is deliberate: it absorbs the warm-up from doors opening and busy service, so a fridge set to 5 still stays under the 8 limit. Operators who set fridges to 8 because they think that is the target have no margin, and one busy lunch tips the food over the legal line without anyone noticing.
Source: Food Standards Agency, Safer Food Better Business (SFBB) for caterers: Opening and closing checks, Temperature, Chilling, Personal hygiene/fitness to work, and Prove it (probe calibration) safe methods. FSA "Chilling food correctly" and "Fitness to work" business guidance (48-hour exclusion after symptoms stop). Food Safety and Hygiene (England) Regulations 2013 and Regulation (EC) 852/2004 (8 degrees C chilled limit; temperature control). Food Information Regulations 2014 and retained EU Regulation 1169/2011, Annex II (14 allergens); FSA best-practice written allergen guidance, March 2025 (Owen's Law not yet law; government evaluation began spring 2026). HSE Approved Code of Practice L8 and HSG274 Part 2 (flush outlets unused for 7+ days at least weekly).
Good to know
A proper opening check, done before the first customer or the first food is touched, is your strongest defence against a poor Food Hygiene Rating, a customer falling ill, or an enforcement notice. The Environmental Health Officer scores how well you manage safety every day, not just on inspection day, so a signed daily record that proves you check temperatures, allergens and sickness exclusion is what protects the rating and the business.
The legal chilled-storage limit in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is 8 degrees C, but the FSA tells you to set fridges to 5 degrees C or below. The gap is deliberate: it absorbs the warm-up from doors opening and busy service, so a fridge set to 5 still stays under the 8 limit. Operators who set fridges to 8 because they think that is the target have no margin, and one busy lunch tips the food over the legal line without anyone noticing.
The PDF downloads the moment you check out, prints sharp in black and white, and opens on any phone. It is reviewed for August 2026 and you get any future update free when the official guidance changes.
This checklist stops the two failures that close kitchens: food sitting in the danger zone (8 to 63 degrees C) long enough for bacteria to multiply, and staff working from memory instead of a record an Environmental Health Officer can read back. A weak opening compromises food before the first order; a rushed close lets fridges drift, pests settle, and yesterday's record go unsigned.
A closing checklist stops the overnight failures that trigger enforcement notices, voided insurance claims, and food poisoning: fridges drifting above 8C unnoticed, hot food cooled too slowly, gas left on, fire exits blocked, and cash left out. These are the specific things an EHO inspector or an insurer's loss adjuster looks for, and the closing record is the proof you did them.
A correct cash-up catches theft, miscounts and till faults at the end of each shift, before they compound and become impossible to trace back to a person or a day. Done the same way every day it gives you the contemporaneous till records HMRC expects, and builds a variance history that tells a one-off mistake apart from a steady leak.