Food safety
🔎 What a food inspector actually checks
Inspections look at your records as closely as your kitchen. What visits focus on and how to be ready.
This is general guidance. Food-safety rules can change — always verify the current requirements with your national food-safety authority ↗. The operator remains responsible for compliance; we accept no liability for this information.
Food authorities across the EU inspect registered businesses, and several countries publish the outcome - Denmark's smiley scheme and the hygiene ratings used in Ireland and the UK are examples. Much of what determines the result is your self-monitoring and whether it is real.
Where visits focus
- Temperatures - storage, heating, hot-holding, cooling - and whether they are logged
- Cleaning and hygiene, in practice and on paper
- Allergen information and whether staff can back it with a written source
- Traceability of your products
- Corrective actions - what you did when a check failed
A common weakness is checks that are done but not documented, or values that are not traceable to a date and a person. Structured, dated records are your protection during inspections, complaints and liability cases.
The Records view shows any past date or a custom range, exports to CSV, and lets a manager annotate a missed check honestly - an explanation, not a backdated signature. That is what keeps the log defensible.
Inspection practice and publication of results vary by country and business type - check your national food authority's guidance.