Temperature is the main thing standing between a kitchen and a food poisoning outbreak, which is why the Safer Food, Better Business pack devotes so much of itself to it. The records exist to show two things: that you check, and that when a check comes back wrong you do something about it.
The figures below are the ones the app prompts with. They are guidance, and the app always lets you save the reading you actually took, including one that is out of range. A record that refuses inconvenient numbers is not a record.
SC2: fridge and freezer records
A temperature reading for each chilled and frozen unit, twice a day. In the app that is a morning slot and an afternoon slot for every unit you have added, with an optional comment if something needs explaining.
- Chilled food must be kept at 8°C or below by law in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Most fridges are set to 5°C or below to leave headroom, because a fridge set exactly at the legal limit fails the moment the door is opened on a busy service.
- Frozen food should be at -18°C or below.
- In the app the temperature dial runs green up to 8°C and amber above it, so a reading that is drifting is visible as a colour rather than as a number you have to interpret.
What matters as much as the reading is what you did about a bad one. Note it in the comment, and if it was serious, put it in the incident log: moved stock to another unit, called the engineer, threw product away.
SC3: cooking, cooling and reheating
One record per batch, with up to three stages. This is the record that proves the food itself was made safe, rather than just stored cold.
- Cooking. A core temperature of 75°C or above, or an equivalent time and temperature combination such as 70°C for two minutes or 60°C for 45 minutes. If you prove your cooking by time instead of by probe, record the start and finish times.
- Cooling. Hot food should be chilled as quickly as possible, ideally within 90 minutes of the end of cooking. The app compares the time the food went into the chiller against the time cooking finished and flags anything longer.
- Reheating. Back up to 75°C or above. Reheat once, and record it against the same batch, even if it happens days later.
SC4: hot holding
For food held hot for service for more than two hours. Hot food should be kept at 63°C or above. The app sets checkpoints at two, four and six hours on display and prompts you to probe at each, marking anything below 63°C so it stands out on the printed record.
The two-hour trigger is the part people miss. A bain-marie that runs from noon to three needs recording. One that runs for forty minutes over a lunch rush does not.
Prove-it checks
Prove-it records are different from the others. They are not a daily routine: they are the evidence that your safe method works at all. You do one when you change a recipe, buy new equipment, or want to show that the way you do something is actually safe.
The app covers six methods, each with the figure it is checking against:
- Cooking: 75°C or above.
- Reheating: 75°C or above.
- Hot holding: 63°C or above.
- Chilled storage and display: 8°C or below.
- Freezing: -18°C or below.
- Chilling down hot food: as quickly as possible, ideally within 90 minutes.
Why these records end up with gaps
It is almost never carelessness about food safety. The temperatures get taken. It is the writing down that fails, and it fails in the same few ways: the clipboard is in the walk-in and your hands are full, the pen has gone, the person who took the reading is not the person who keeps the folder, or a busy Saturday simply swallows the paperwork.
A phone survives all four. The reading goes in where you are standing, it is signed by whoever took it, and the calendar shows you the gap the next day rather than at your next inspection.
Common questions
How often do I need to record fridge temperatures?
The SFBB pack asks for a check at the start and end of each day the business is open. The app gives every unit a morning and an afternoon slot to match.
What temperature should a fridge be?
Chilled food has to be kept at 8°C or below by law in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Most kitchens set the fridge to 5°C or below so that opening the door during service does not push the food over the legal limit.
What core temperature should food be cooked to?
75°C or above, or an equivalent combination of time and temperature such as 70°C for two minutes or 60°C for 45 minutes. Reheated food should reach the same 75°C.
How long can hot food take to cool down?
As quickly as possible, and ideally within 90 minutes of the end of cooking. The app flags a cool-down that took longer so you can look at the method rather than just log the number.
What temperature is hot holding?
63°C or above. Food held hot for more than two hours needs recording, and the app prompts for checks at two, four and six hours on display.
Do I have to keep temperature records on paper?
No. The records have to exist and you have to be able to produce them, but the pack does not require paper. The app prints every record onto the official FSA forms so what you hand over is the familiar document.
What do I do if a reading is out of range?
Record the real reading, then record what you did about it: move the stock, call the engineer, discard the food. Inspectors are looking for the response as much as the reading, and a run of perfect numbers with no exceptions is less convincing than an honest record with actions attached.
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