HACCP for Small Restaurants: A Plain English Guide
What HACCP Actually Means
HACCP — Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points — sounds like something designed for food factories, not your small restaurant or takeaway. In practice, it is simply a structured way of identifying what could go wrong with food safety in your business and putting controls in place to prevent it. UK food law requires all food businesses to have a food safety management system based on HACCP principles, but for small businesses, the FSA provides a simplified version called Safer Food Better Business (SFBB).
The seven principles of HACCP are: identify hazards, determine critical control points, set critical limits, establish monitoring procedures, establish corrective actions, verify the system works, and keep records. For a small restaurant, this translates to: know what can make people ill, know where in your process you can prevent it, check it is working, and write it down.
SFBB Is HACCP for Small Businesses
The Food Standards Agency created the Safer Food Better Business (SFBB) pack specifically for small food businesses that need to comply with HACCP requirements without the complexity of a full HACCP plan. The SFBB pack is free, available from food.gov.uk, and is the document that Environmental Health Officers expect to see during inspections of small businesses.
There are different SFBB packs for different business types: one for restaurants and takeaways, one for retail businesses, and one for childminders. Each pack is structured around "safe methods" — practical procedures written in plain English that cover the key food safety risks for that business type.
The pack has two main sections: safe methods (the procedures) and the diary (the record-keeping). Both must be completed and maintained. A completed safe methods section with an empty diary is not compliant — the diary is what proves you are actually following your procedures.
Implementing SFBB: A Step-by-Step Guide
Week 1: Get the pack and read it. Download the SFBB pack for your business type from food.gov.uk or request a paper copy from your local authority. Read through all the safe methods. Many will describe practices you already follow — the task is to document them, not necessarily to change them.
Week 2: Complete the safe methods. Work through each safe method and tick the practices that apply to your business. Where a safe method does not apply (for example, you do not reheat food), mark it as "not applicable" and note why. The safe methods section should reflect what you actually do, not what you think inspectors want to hear.
Week 3: Start the diary. Begin filling in the diary section daily. This includes opening and closing checks, temperature records, and any problems and corrective actions. The diary is where most businesses fall down — it needs to be maintained every day, not filled in retrospectively before an inspection. Inspectors can tell the difference.
Week 4 onwards: Maintain and review. The SFBB pack includes a 4-weekly review section. Every four weeks, review your safe methods, check that procedures are still being followed, and update anything that has changed. Date and sign each review. This ongoing maintenance is what converts SFBB from a static document into an active food safety management system.
Temperature Monitoring
Temperature control is the most critical control point for almost all food businesses. Incorrect temperatures allow bacterial growth that causes foodborne illness. Your SFBB diary should record:
Fridge temperatures twice daily. All fridges should operate between 1°C and 5°C. If a fridge reads above 5°C, investigate immediately: is it overloaded, is the door seal damaged, is the thermostat set correctly? Record the temperature and any corrective action taken.
Freezer temperatures once daily. Freezers should be below -18°C. Small fluctuations during defrost cycles are normal; sustained temperatures above -15°C indicate a problem.
Cooking temperatures for high-risk items. Use a calibrated probe thermometer to check the core temperature of cooked food. The core must reach 75°C for at least two minutes. For dishes that are cooked to order, establishing that your processes consistently achieve safe temperatures through periodic checks is sufficient.
Hot-held food temperatures for businesses that hold food above 63°C for service. Check periodically and record. Food that drops below 63°C should either be reheated to above 75°C or discarded within two hours.
Allergen Management Under Natasha's Law
Since October 2021, Natasha's Law requires all food that is prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) — such as sandwiches, salads, and baked goods made and packaged on the premises — to carry a full ingredients list with the 14 major allergens emphasised in bold, italics, or highlighting.
Even for food that is not PPDS, you must be able to provide allergen information to customers on request. This means maintaining an allergen matrix for your menu, training all staff on allergen handling, and having procedures for preventing cross-contamination of allergens during food preparation.
Your SFBB pack should include an allergen management section. If your current pack predates Natasha's Law, download the updated version from food.gov.uk or create a supplementary allergen management document.
Common HACCP Mistakes in Small Restaurants
The most common mistake is treating SFBB as a one-off document rather than a living system. Completing the safe methods section and then leaving the pack in a drawer for months defeats the purpose. Inspectors look for evidence of ongoing use: dated diary entries, completed 4-weekly reviews, and documented corrective actions when things go wrong.
The second most common mistake is generic rather than specific safe methods. Your SFBB should reflect your actual business operations. If you have a tandoori oven, your cooking procedures should mention it. If you serve sushi, your raw fish handling procedures should be detailed. Generic procedures suggest you copied the pack without thinking about your specific risks.
The third mistake is incomplete temperature records. Gaps in your temperature log tell inspectors that monitoring is inconsistent. Even if temperatures are always safe, the absence of records means you cannot prove it. Buy a bound logbook (not loose sheets, which can be lost or selectively removed) and record temperatures at the same times each day.
When You Might Need Professional Help
Most small restaurants can implement SFBB themselves using the free FSA pack and guidance. However, you might benefit from professional help if you have a complex menu with high-risk preparations (such as raw fish, sous vide, or fermented foods), you have failed multiple inspections and cannot identify what needs to change, you are opening a new food business and want to get it right from the start, or your business handles significant allergen risks that require detailed procedures.
Environmental Health Consultants typically charge £500–£2,000 for a pre-inspection audit and HACCP implementation. For many small businesses, this investment pays for itself through improved ratings and avoided enforcement action.
Get Your HACCP Priorities Right
HygieneFix analyses your specific inspection scores to identify which HACCP elements need the most attention. Rather than working through the entire SFBB pack generically, our action plan shows you where your management documentation is weakest and what to prioritise. Check your rating at hygienefix.co.uk.