Background
Food safety in restaurants, pubs and hotels
A restaurant, pub or hotel kitchen that prepares and serves food is a food business. It follows the same UK food hygiene law as any catering kitchen: the operator must put in place, implement and maintain procedures based on HACCP principles, sized to the kitchen and the food it handles.
Many businesses in England and Wales use the Food Standards Agency's Safer Food Better Business pack. Scotland uses CookSafe. Northern Ireland uses Safe Catering. A Safer Risk does not write or own that system.
For one kitchen, a well-kept paper diary can do the job. Across a restaurant group, a pub estate or a hotel, the work is making sure the same checks happen on every shift, including a late service and a day when the usual person is off.
Hawksmoor, Wenzel's, The Langham, London and Foxhills are hospitality customers. The hospitality customer page names them and does not publish their internal scores. Care providers have a separate care home guide.
On the shift
The records a hospitality kitchen already keeps
Most HACCP-based systems, including SFBB, ask for a similar set of routine records. Here is where each one lives in A Safer Risk.
Opening and closing checks
The safe start and shut-down for a service, signed by the person on shift.
Fridge, freezer and cooking
Readings at the limits your system sets, with a record when a unit is out of range.
Hot holding and cooling
Checks at the points your menu and your food safety system say matter.
Cleaning schedules
What is cleaned, how often, and whether that clean happened.
Allergen procedures
The current procedure and training record. Not an allergen matrix.
Audits across the group
The same template for an internal visit and a Safer Food Scores external audit.
Incidents on the shift
A food safety incident logged, given an owner, and closed with a record of what changed.
One view before lunch
Missed checks and open actions by site, visible to head office the same morning.
HACCP and the packs
HACCP, SFBB and the pack your kitchens already run
Whichever pack your sites use, A Safer Risk sits alongside it rather than replacing it.
The legal principle
HACCP
The principles UK food law asks every food business to base its procedures on. A traditional HACCP plan works through hazards, critical control points and limits in detail. Read the HACCP software guide.
England and Wales
Safer Food Better Business
The Food Standards Agency pack for many catering businesses, with safe methods, a daily diary and a 4-weekly review. See how groups run it with the SFBB guide and the digital diary.
Scotland and Northern Ireland
CookSafe and Safe Catering
Scotland uses CookSafe. Northern Ireland uses Safe Catering. Some groups also use a food safety management pack written for their sites, including packs from Safer Food Scores. Like SFBB, these are founded on HACCP principles.
Across the estate
Same standard, local ownership
A paper diary can work in one kitchen. Across a group, the same gaps tend to open up.
Paper diaries and phone rounds
- Each kitchen keeps its own diary, and head office cannot see today's opening checks without ringing round.
- Temperatures written up at the end of service, or the morning an inspector is due.
- A failed check is noted on the pass, with no owner and no record that it was closed.
- The allergen procedure on the pass is a different copy from the one in the office.
- Area managers spend the visit collecting diaries instead of looking at the kitchen.
Digital checks and records
- Missed opening checks and overdue actions visible for every site the same morning.
- Scheduled checks completed on a phone or tablet, with the person's name and the time.
- A failed check stays as an action with a site, an owner and a due date.
- One current procedure in the document store, with a review date.
- The same audit template for an internal visit and a Safer Food Scores external audit.
A missed fridge check in one kitchen should not wait for head office to ring the manager. Today's diary lists what is due at every site. A failed task becomes an action with an owner and a due date, so overdue checks and open actions are visible before an EHO visit.
Missed checks across sites describes that morning view. Food safety audit software covers internal scoring and a Safer Food Scores external audit in the same report.
Inspection readiness
What an inspector is usually asking to see
Environmental health officers look for evidence that procedures are followed, not only written down. A Safer Risk keeps that evidence organised for each kitchen.
Completed checks
Opening, temperature and cleaning checks with who did them and when.
Current procedures
The procedure in use on the shift, with a review date, not last year's copy on the pass.
Audit history
Scored audits with findings and photos, including a Safer Food Scores external audit in the same report.
Action trail
What happened when a temperature or a clean was missed, and who closed it.
Allergen procedures
The current procedure and training record. A Safer Risk does not include an allergen matrix.
A group-wide view
Missed checks and open actions for every kitchen, visible the same morning.
Software can organise that evidence. It does not guarantee a food hygiene rating. Food hygiene inspections are carried out by local authority environmental health officers. Good records support a visit. They do not replace trained people or a well-run kitchen.
Platform fit
How A Safer Risk fits a hospitality food safety system
The table shows which parts stay with your team and which modules help. Explore each module on its feature page.
| Hospitality need | Who or what helps | How teams use it |
|---|---|---|
| Your HACCP-based food safety system (SFBB, CookSafe, Safe Catering or your own plan) | Your team or food safety adviser
| Deciding hazards, controls and limits needs food safety knowledge, and A Safer Risk does not do it for you. Keep the documented system versioned and review-dated in the document store. |
| Opening, temperature and cleaning checks | Scheduled for each kitchen and completed on the shift, with missed or overdue tasks visible to head office the same morning. | |
| Allergen procedures | Procedures, recipes and training records with a review date. A Safer Risk does not include an allergen matrix or allergen labelling tool. | |
| Internal and external audits | The same template for a visit by your own team and for a Safer Food Scores external audit, with minor, major and critical ratings. | |
| Corrective actions | A finding can raise an action with a person and a due date. It stays open until someone closes it. What staff do when a check fails is still set out in your food safety system. | |
| Incidents on the shift | Log a food safety incident from the kitchen, give it an owner, and keep the record of how it was closed. | |
| Oversight across the estate | Score, audits, open actions and missed checks by site, without waiting for a Monday phone round. |
See all modules on the features overview.
Customers
Hospitality kitchens already on the platform
Hawksmoor, Wenzel's, The Langham, London and Foxhills use A Safer Risk. They are not one organisation. They are a restaurant group, a bakery chain, a London hotel and a Surrey hotel and country club.
This page names them and stops there. It does not publish their scores, missed-check rates or inspection outcomes. The platform totals on the homepage cover all 90 customers, not these four.
What we publish
- Shift checklists completed with evidence on mobile or tablet
- Scored audits and follow-up actions with an owner and due date
- Central document store with review dates for policies and procedures
- Multi-site dashboard for missed checks and open actions
- External Safer Food Scores audits aligned with internal audit templates
Hawksmoor
Restaurants
Wenzel's
Bakeries
The Langham, London
Hotel
Foxhills
Hotel and country club
Who it is for
Built for groups with more than one kitchen
Restaurant groups, pub estates, hotels, bakery chains and contract caterers. Head office sets the templates once. Each kitchen manager still owns the shift. The same platform also serves care home groups.
Not sure which plan fits? Book a demo and we will walk through your kitchens, or start a free trial to try checklists and documents on your own data.
Core
£69
per site, per month
Checklists, document management and the compliance view.
Professional
£149
per site, per month
Adds more of the audit and reporting depth.
Prices on a 12-month contract. A half-day external audit is included on Complete and can be added to Core or Professional. Compare plans on the pricing page. Safer Food Scores publish their consultancy at saferfoodscores.co.uk.
FAQ
Hospitality food safety questions
- Can a restaurant group keep food safety records digitally?
- Yes. UK food hygiene law does not require paper records. Environmental health officers look for evidence that procedures are followed: checks completed, problems corrected and the system reviewed. A Safer Risk stores that evidence. It does not replace the operator's legal duty. If you are replacing a long-standing paper diary, tell your local authority when you switch.
- Does this replace Safer Food Better Business?
- No. Safer Food Better Business is the Food Standards Agency pack for many catering businesses in England and Wales. A Safer Risk can run the daily diary, opening and closing checks and the 4-weekly review as digital tasks that follow that pack. Scotland uses CookSafe and Northern Ireland uses Safe Catering. The pack you follow is still yours.
- Does A Safer Risk write our HACCP plan or food safety system?
- No. A Safer Risk does not write, approve or take ownership of your HACCP plan or food safety management system. It runs the monitoring: scheduled checks, evidence, audits and the actions that follow a miss. Safer Food Better Business, CookSafe, Safe Catering and the packs from our sister consultancy Safer Food Scores are founded on HACCP principles. If you need help writing the system itself, Safer Food Scores provides HACCP, training and documentation support.
- Do you provide an allergen matrix?
- No. A Safer Risk does not include an allergen matrix or allergen labelling tool. Allergen procedures, recipes and training records can live in the document store, with a review date, so the current copy is the one on shift. The matrix itself stays in whatever tool you use for it.
- How does it work for a group of restaurants, pubs or hotels?
- Checklists, documents, audits and actions sit in one workspace scoped to each site, so every kitchen works to the same templates while the manager of that site stays accountable for the day. The compliance dashboard then puts sites side by side: score, audits, open actions and missed checks, visible to head office the same morning.
- Can Safer Food Scores audit a hotel or restaurant group?
- Yes. Safer Food Scores is the sister consultancy. They can visit and record an external audit in A Safer Risk, using the same template as the internal audits your own team run. A half-day external audit is included on Complete and can be added to Core or Professional. See audit pricing for the current figures.
- How much does it cost for a hospitality group?
- Core is £69 per site per month on a 12-month contract, and Professional is £149 per site per month. Both include checklists and the compliance view. Professional adds more of the audit and reporting depth. Compare the modules on the pricing page.
Keep reading
Guides for the pack you already run
SFBB, the daily diary, HACCP records and catching missed checks before lunch.
Safer Food Better Business
SFBB app and digital pack
Run the FSA pack's safe methods, daily diary and 4-weekly review as a digital SFBB app across every kitchen.
SFBB diary
Digital SFBB diary
Daily opening and closing checks, temperature records and sign-off without paper diary refills.
HACCP-based systems
HACCP software
The seven HACCP principles in plain English, and where monitoring software can support your records.
Multi-site kitchens
Missed checks across sites
Overdue kitchen checks at every site, visible the same morning, with a named owner on each one.
Next step
The same food safety standard in every kitchen
See how opening checks, documents, audits and actions stay visible across a restaurant, pub or hotel group, on a demo or in a free trial.