Safer Food, Better Business and HACCP: what the inspector will ask for

The environmental health officer walks in unannounced at 11am, washes their hands, and asks to see your food safety records. One of the first things they open is your Safer Food, Better Business diary.

Every UK food business must run a food safety management system based on HACCP principles. Safer Food, Better Business (SFBB) is the Food Standards Agency's free pack that lets small caterers in England and Wales do that without writing a HACCP plan from scratch. Your pack, diary and training records feed one of the three scores behind your hygiene rating, "confidence in management", and that is the score that most often drags a restaurant down to 0 or 1.

We checked the FSA's published scores for 117,445 restaurants, cafés and canteens. Of those rated 0 or 1, 97% scored 20 or worse on confidence in management. This guide covers what the law requires, how the officer scores you, a printable daily record, and when SFBB is enough.

Last checked: 4 November 2026.

What does the law require?

Article 5 of Regulation 852/2004, which still forms part of UK food hygiene law, says food businesses must "put in place, implement and maintain a permanent procedure or procedures based on the HACCP principles". gov.uk's plain-English version is on its food safety management systems page: your system must meet the HACCP principles, and you must keep records of your checks and any corrective action.

The seven HACCP principles, in kitchen terms:

The 75°C example is one of the time and temperature combinations in the SFBB "Cooking safely" method, which also allows, for example, 70°C for at least 2 minutes. The regulation lets the paperwork fit the size of the business. A five-table café does not need the binder a hotel kitchen keeps. It does need procedures that match what it cooks, and proof they are followed.

A new business must also register with its council at least 28 days before it starts trading. Our guide to opening a restaurant in the UK puts registration in order with the other pre-opening jobs, and if you will serve alcohol, the liquor licence guide covers the premises licence.

How does SFBB affect your food hygiene rating?

The officer gives you three scores, where lower is better, and your rating depends on both their total and your single worst score. The method is set out in the FSA's Food Hygiene Rating Scheme Brand Standard (revision 8, June 2023), which applies the scoring in the Food Law Code of Practice.

What the inspector scores:

How the scores become your rating. The total of the three sets the rating, and a single high score caps it: in the Brand Standard's own example, scores of 5, 5 and 20 total 30, but the 20 means a rating of 1. Our food hygiene rating guide has the full score-to-rating table, display rules and appeals.

The management trap. Confidence in management has no 15. It jumps from 10 to 20, and a 20 on its own caps you at 1, however clean the kitchen is. A 10 means "generally satisfactory food safety controls in place", with records "generally maintained but some deficiencies/gaps identified". A 20 means procedures that are "inappropriate or inadequate or little or no progress made since the last intervention". The score is not only about paperwork: the Brand Standard says HACCP-based procedures "cannot be termed 'satisfactory'" if they are not being properly implemented, so hygiene failures that show your methods are not followed also pull it down.

What the published scores show. The FSA publishes the three scores behind every rating as open data. On 4 November 2026 we downloaded every business listed as a restaurant, café or canteen with a 0 to 5 rating in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and recalculated each rating from its scores. The rule above matched all 117,445 that had scores published.

Dirty kitchens lose marks, but a restaurant rated 0 or 1 almost always has a failing management score as well. That is the score a completed pack, a signed diary and recorded training protect.

What will the inspector ask to see?

The Brand Standard lists what shapes the management score: your track record and willingness to act on previous advice, management's attitude to food safety, food safety knowledge including HACCP, and satisfactory food safety management procedures. In practice, have these in one place:

• the SFBB pack or HACCP plan, completed and current;
• the diary, signed daily, with four-weekly reviews;
• fridge, freezer, cooking, cooling and hot-holding temperature records;
• your cleaning schedule;
• training records for every food handler;
• allergen information for every dish;
• your suppliers' list and delivery checks;
• pest control records or contract;
• the report from your last inspection, with what you fixed.

Then expect the officer to check the kitchen against what the paperwork says. The Brand Standard gives an "absence of essential wash hand basin or sink" as an example of almost total structural non-compliance, the worst structural score, so make sure every basin has hot water, soap and paper towels before you open.

The Food Law Code of Practice says inspections happen without prior notice unless notice is justified. How often depends on risk: from every six months for the highest-risk businesses to every two years for lower-risk ones. Our food hygiene rating guide covers appeals and re-rating. In Scotland, the Food Hygiene Information Scheme gives a Pass or Improvement Required instead of a score.

How often do I fill in the SFBB diary?

Every day you open. The FSA's diary introduction says it "should take about one minute a day to complete", unless something went wrong. The manager signs to confirm the opening and closing checks were done and the safe methods followed, and notes any problem and what was done about it.

Print this sheet, one per day. The opening and closing checks follow the SFBB pack's own list; the temperature lines are the "prove it" records an officer asks for. Adjust the targets to your own safe methods.

DAILY FOOD SAFETY RECORD               Date: ___ / ___ / ______
Business: _______________________      Manager: _______________

OPENING CHECKS                                         Tick
Fridges, chilled display and freezers working          [ ]
Other equipment (e.g. oven) working                    [ ]
Staff fit for work and in clean work clothes           [ ]
  (no diarrhoea or vomiting in the last 48 hours)
Prep areas clean and disinfected                       [ ]
No evidence of pest activity                           [ ]
Soap, paper towels and sanitiser stocked               [ ]
Hot running water at every sink and wash hand basin    [ ]
Probe thermometer working, probe wipes available       [ ]
Allergen information accurate for every dish on sale   [ ]
  (including today's specials)
Cleaning done to the cleaning schedule                 [ ]

TEMPERATURES                      Time     Reading   Initials
Fridge 1 (8°C or below)           _____    _____°C   _____
Fridge 2 (8°C or below)           _____    _____°C   _____
Freezer (-18°C or below)          _____    _____°C   _____
Cooked: _______________           _____    _____°C   _____
Cooked: _______________           _____    _____°C   _____
Hot holding (63°C or above)       _____    _____°C   _____
Hot holding (63°C or above)       _____    _____°C   _____
Chilled down: _________   cooked at _____   in fridge at _____

CLOSING CHECKS                                         Tick
All food covered, labelled, in the fridge or freezer   [ ]
Food on its use-by date thrown away                    [ ]
Dirty cleaning equipment cleaned or thrown away        [ ]
Waste removed, new bin bags in                         [ ]
Prep areas clean and disinfected                       [ ]
All washing up finished                                [ ]
Floors swept and clean                                 [ ]
Prove-it checks recorded                               [ ]

PROBLEMS OR CHANGES: WHAT HAPPENED AND WHAT YOU DID
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________

Our safe methods were followed and effectively supervised today.
Opening checks signed: ____________   Closing checks signed: ____________

Chilled food must be kept at 8°C or below and hot food held at 63°C or above, with limited exceptions, under Schedule 4 of the Food Safety and Hygiene (England) Regulations 2013. Wales and Northern Ireland have the same limits in their own regulations, and Scotland has its own rules. The SFBB freezing method says frozen food should be kept at -18°C or below.

Every four weeks, complete the review page in the SFBB caterers' pack. It asks you to walk the kitchen, look back over four weeks of diary entries, and investigate anything serious or anything that went wrong three times or more. It also asks whether probes were calibrated: the pack's check is within 1°C of 100°C in boiling water and 0°C in melting ice. The pack says the review "requires completion even if no problems have been found".

Do I need a HACCP plan or is SFBB enough?

The FSA publishes Safer Food, Better Business packs for caterers, retailers, childminders and care homes, with versions for Indian and Chinese cuisine. The packs apply in England and Wales. Scotland uses CookSafe, Food Standards Scotland's HACCP manual for caterers, and Northern Ireland uses the FSA's Safe Catering guidance.

Whether SFBB is enough depends on what you cook.

The table is our reading of the rules, not FSA wording. If you are unsure, ask your council's food team before your first inspection. Check with your local authority for your situation.

"Completed" is the key word. The SFBB page says the pack "must be completed for all your food operations". Each safe method asks you to write down what you do. "We clean regularly" tells an officer nothing; "fridge seals wiped daily with [product], deep clean Mondays" does. Keep completed diary pages "until your next visit from a local authority food safety officer", on paper or electronically.

Do all my staff need a Level 2 food hygiene certificate?

Not by law. Annex II, Chapter XII of Regulation 852/2004 requires food handlers to be "supervised and instructed and/or trained in food hygiene matters commensurate with their work activity". It does not name a certificate.

Training still counts towards your management score: a 5 describes staff "suitably supervised, instructed and/or trained with good general staff knowledge and new staff receiving induction training". A Level 2 course is the easiest way to show it. Whatever you use, record who was trained, on what, when, and who checked they understood. The SFBB diary has a staff training record.

Allergen training matters as much as hygiene training. See our guides to the allergen matrix and Natasha's Law.

Can TablePort handle this for you?

Part of it. TablePort does not replace your SFBB pack, but it supports the allergen side of your system:

1. Allergens on every dish. Record the 14 allergens and dietary preferences against menu items. Menu import drafts allergens for you to check against your recipes before publishing.
2. Guest allergies on the booking. Allergies and preferences sit on the guest and show on the booking, so the host knows before the table sits down.
3. Notes to the right station. Modifiers and notes travel with the ticket to the station that owns the dish.

The limit: TablePort does not keep temperature logs, cleaning schedules or your SFBB diary. See the POS page for kitchen routing.