Food safety
🔎 What a food inspector actually checks
Denmark’s smiley scheme rewards good records. 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.
In Denmark, the food authority (Fødevarestyrelsen) inspects food businesses and publishes each result as a public "smiley" rating. A run of good visits earns an Elite smiley; problems earn remarks or sanctions. Much of what determines the outcome is your self-monitoring and whether it’s real.
Where visits focus
- Temperatures — storage, heating, hot-holding, cooling — and whether they’re 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 aren’t 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’s what keeps the log defensible.
Danish public "smiley" inspection scheme. Requirements vary by business type.