If you run a café, restaurant, takeaway, pub or any business that handles food, you've almost certainly heard the word HACCP. It can sound like bureaucratic jargon — but it's really just a structured way of keeping food safe, and keeping proof that you did. This guide explains what HACCP is, what the law requires, and how a HACCP app replaces the dog-eared paper diary that so many kitchens still rely on.
HACCP is a legal duty for almost every food business in the UK and EU. It isn't about owning a thick binder — it's about doing the right checks and being able to prove it. A good HACCP app makes that proof effortless and always ready for inspection. Start a free trial of HACCPapp →
1. What is HACCP?
HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points. It is an internationally recognised, preventive approach to food safety that focuses on identifying the things that could make food unsafe — biological, chemical, physical and allergenic hazards — and controlling them at the points in your process where it matters most.
Rather than relying on testing the finished product, HACCP builds safety into every step, from delivery and storage through to cooking, cooling and service. The system was originally developed for the space programme in the 1960s and is now the backbone of food safety law and the global Codex Alimentarius standard.
The 7 principles of HACCP
Every HACCP-based system, no matter how simple, is built on the same seven principles:
- Conduct a hazard analysis — identify the hazards that could occur in your process.
- Determine the Critical Control Points (CCPs) — the steps where a control is essential to prevent or eliminate a hazard, such as cooking or chilling.
- Establish critical limits — the measurable boundaries for each CCP, for example a core cooking temperature of 75 °C.
- Establish monitoring procedures — decide how and how often you'll check each CCP (this is where temperature logs come in).
- Establish corrective actions — what you'll do when a limit isn't met, e.g. continue cooking or discard the food.
- Establish verification procedures — confirm the system is working, through reviews and checks.
- Establish record-keeping and documentation — keep written or digital evidence that the system is being followed.
In the UK, smaller businesses often work to Safer Food, Better Business (SFBB) — the FSA's plain-language pack that delivers a HACCP-based system without the heavy paperwork. A HACCP app such as HACCPapp follows exactly this philosophy: principle 4 (monitoring) and principle 7 (records) are precisely the parts a digital tool automates.
2. Is HACCP a legal requirement?
Yes. For the vast majority of food businesses, having a documented, HACCP-based food safety management system is a legal obligation, not a nice-to-have.
- European Union — Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 on the hygiene of foodstuffs requires food business operators in all 27 member states to "put in place, implement and maintain" permanent procedures based on HACCP principles.
- United Kingdom — the same requirement is retained in UK law following EU exit, sitting alongside the Food Safety Act 1990 and the Food Hygiene Regulations. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) enforces this through local authority Environmental Health teams.
- Australia — Standard 3.2.1 of the Food Standards Code (administered by FSANZ) requires certain food businesses to have a documented food safety programme based on HACCP principles.
Who must comply?
In practice, almost any business that prepares, cooks, stores, transports or serves food must operate a HACCP-based system: restaurants, cafés, takeaways, pubs, hotels, caterers, mobile and street food traders, schools, care homes, bakeries, butchers and food manufacturers. There is a very narrow exemption for primary production (such as a farm growing crops), but once food is being handled or prepared for sale, the duty applies.
Failing to keep adequate food safety records can lead to improvement notices, a lower Food Hygiene Rating, prosecution and even closure. Inspectors don't just want to see you doing the right things — they want documented proof, which is exactly what a HACCP app provides on demand.
3. What records must a food business keep?
HACCP principle 7 is record-keeping, and it's where most businesses come unstuck at inspection. The documentation you're expected to maintain typically includes:
- Temperature logs — fridge and freezer readings, plus cooking, hot-holding, cooling and reheating temperatures for high-risk foods.
- Opening and closing checks — daily confirmation that equipment, hygiene and food are all in order at the start and end of service.
- Cleaning schedules — what is cleaned, how, how often, and a record that it was done.
- Delivery and supplier checks — temperatures of chilled/frozen deliveries, dates, condition and supplier traceability.
- Allergen information — an accurate matrix of which dishes contain which of the 14 allergens, kept up to date as recipes change.
- Corrective actions — what you did when something went wrong (a fridge failure, an out-of-spec delivery, a missed clean).
Both the FSA and EU guidance recommend retaining food safety records for around two years, although the exact period can depend on the shelf life of the food and the type of business. The safest approach is to keep a complete two-year archive — something a paper diary makes painful but a HACCP app handles automatically.
4. Paper vs a HACCP app — why digital wins
Paper diaries have kept kitchens going for decades, but they fail in predictable ways: they get coffee-stained, water-damaged, filled in retrospectively, or simply lost. A HACCP app removes those failure points. Here's a direct comparison.
| Consideration | Paper diary | HACCPapp |
|---|---|---|
| Legibility | Handwriting varies; smudges and gaps | Clean, timestamped, consistent entries |
| Lost or damaged records | High risk Spills, fire, bin | Protected Backed up to the cloud |
| 2-year retention | Stacks of binders to store & find | Searchable archive, always to hand |
| Allergen updates | Manual rewrites, easily outdated | Update once, reflected everywhere |
| Inspection export | Flick through pages under pressure | Instant EHO-ready PDF in seconds |
| Missed checks | No reminders; easy to forget | Daily prompts & a compliance score |
| Cost | Cheap to buy, costly when it fails | £9.99/month, free 14-day trial |
The hidden cost of paper isn't the notebook — it's the failed inspection, the lower hygiene rating, or the missing record on the one day it mattered. A digital HACCP documentation system removes that risk for the price of a couple of coffees a month.
5. What to look for in a HACCP app
Not all food safety apps are equal. If you're choosing a HACCP app for your business, these are the capabilities that genuinely matter day to day:
Offline-first
Walk-in fridges and cellars have no signal. Records must save on-device and sync later — never lost to a dead spot.
Fast temperature logging
A temperature log app should let staff record a fridge, freezer or cook temp in a couple of taps.
14-allergen matrix
A built-in allergen app that maps every dish to the 14 allergens and updates instantly when recipes change.
EHO-ready PDF export
One tap should produce a clean, professional PDF of all your records for an inspector.
2-year cloud archive
Records kept securely for the full recommended retention period, searchable in seconds.
Affordability
Honest, flat pricing without per-site surcharges — so a single café isn't billed like a chain.
These are precisely the principles HACCPapp is built around: it works offline, logs temperatures in seconds, ships with a full 14-allergen matrix, exports an inspection-ready PDF, and keeps your two-year archive in the cloud — all for one affordable monthly price.
6. The 14 allergens & Natasha's Law
Allergen management is one of the highest-risk areas in any kitchen — and one of the most heavily regulated. Under EU Regulation 1169/2011 (Food Information to Consumers), retained in UK law, there are 14 allergens that must be declared whenever they're used as ingredients:
- Celery
- Cereals containing gluten (wheat, rye, barley, oats)
- Crustaceans (e.g. prawns, crab, lobster)
- Eggs
- Fish
- Lupin
- Milk
- Molluscs (e.g. mussels, squid)
- Mustard
- Tree nuts (e.g. almonds, walnuts, cashews)
- Peanuts
- Sesame
- Soya
- Sulphur dioxide / sulphites (above 10 mg/kg or 10 mg/litre)
Since October 2021, Natasha's Law requires food prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) — items wrapped on the same premises before a customer orders, like a packaged sandwich — to carry a full ingredients list with the 14 allergens emphasised. Keeping an accurate, up-to-date allergen matrix in a HACCP app makes complying with this far easier than rewriting paper labels by hand.
7. Temperature control & the danger zone
Most food poisoning bacteria multiply fastest in the danger zone between 8 °C and 63 °C. Controlling temperature at every stage is one of the most important CCPs in any kitchen, which is why a reliable temperature log app sits at the heart of HACCP. The standard figures used across UK and EU food safety are:
- Cold-holding / chilled storage: keep at 8 °C or below (UK legal maximum). Best practice and most fridges target 0–5 °C.
- Freezing: keep frozen food at around −18 °C.
- Cooking: a common guideline is a core temperature of 75 °C (or equivalent combinations such as 70 °C for 2 minutes) to ensure harmful bacteria are destroyed.
- Hot-holding: keep hot food at 63 °C or above.
- Reheating: reheat to at least 75 °C (82 °C in Scotland) and serve promptly.
- Cooling: cool cooked food intended for chilling as quickly as possible — ideally within around 90 minutes — before refrigerating.
For food held outside safe temperatures (for example on display), many authorities apply a "2-hour / 4-hour" approach: under 2 hours it can be returned to chilled storage; between 2 and 4 hours it should be used; beyond 4 hours it should be discarded. Logging these times and temperatures gives you the corrective-action trail an inspector wants to see.
8. Preparing for an EHO / food safety inspection
An EHO inspection (carried out by an Environmental Health Officer or Practitioner) is usually unannounced. The inspector assesses three things: how hygienically you handle food, the condition of your premises, and — crucially — how confident they can be that you'll keep doing it right. That confidence comes almost entirely from your records.
What inspectors typically ask to see
- Your written or digital HACCP-based food safety management system (or SFBB pack).
- Temperature logs for fridges, freezers, cooking, hot-holding and cooling.
- Cleaning schedules and evidence they're being followed.
- Delivery and supplier traceability records.
- Your allergen matrix and how you communicate allergens to customers.
- A record of corrective actions — proof that when something went wrong, you fixed it.
With a paper system this means hunting through binders while the inspector waits. With a HACCP app, you open the export screen and hand over a complete, timestamped PDF in seconds. That single difference often shapes the tone — and the score — of the whole visit, feeding directly into your Food Hygiene Rating.
9. HACCP by country
The HACCP principle is universal, but the regulator and the local terminology differ. HACCPapp supports food businesses across the UK, EU and beyond — here's who oversees food safety in each market we serve. You can find more detail on our countries page.
🇬🇧 United Kingdom — FSA
The Food Standards Agency sets policy; local authority EHOs inspect and assign Food Hygiene Ratings.
🇩🇪 Germany — LMHV / Veterinäramt
The LMHV hygiene rules apply; the local Veterinäramt (veterinary office) carries out food inspections.
🇳🇱 Netherlands — NVWA
The Nederlandse Voedsel- en Warenautoriteit enforces food safety and HACCP-based controls.
🇫🇷 France — DGAL / DDPP
The DGAL sets national policy; the departmental DDPP conducts on-the-ground inspections.
🇮🇪 Ireland — FSAI
The Food Safety Authority of Ireland oversees food safety and HACCP enforcement.
🇦🇺 Australia — FSANZ
Food Standards Australia New Zealand sets the Code; Standard 3.2.1 requires food safety programmes.
10. How HACCPapp helps
HACCPapp turns everything above into a simple daily routine. Staff log temperatures, opening and closing checks, cleaning, deliveries and allergens in a few taps — even with no signal in the walk-in. Records sync to a secure two-year cloud archive, missed checks are flagged by a live compliance score, and when an inspector arrives you export a complete, professional PDF in seconds.
Always inspection-ready
Every record is timestamped and exportable as an EHO-ready PDF on demand.
Live compliance score
See at a glance whether today's checks are done — across every site you run.
Secure & private
Encrypted in transit and backed up; see our security overview.
Real support
Friendly help when you need it via haccpapp.net/support.
Explore the full feature list, see transparent pricing, or read the FAQ. Questions before you start? Our support team is ready to help.
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What is a HACCP app?
A HACCP app is a mobile application that replaces paper diaries for food safety record-keeping. It lets you log fridge and freezer temperatures, complete daily opening and closing checks, record cleaning, deliveries and allergen information, and produce an inspection-ready PDF for an Environmental Health Officer. HACCPapp works offline-first on Android and keeps your records for the recommended two-year retention period.
Is HACCP a legal requirement in the UK and EU?
Yes. Across all 27 EU member states, EU Regulation 852/2004 requires food businesses to put in place procedures based on HACCP principles. In the UK the same duty is retained in domestic law alongside the Food Safety Act 1990. In Australia, Food Standards Code Standard 3.2.1 imposes equivalent food safety programme requirements. Almost every business that prepares, cooks, stores or serves food must comply.
How long do I have to keep my food safety records?
Both the UK Food Standards Agency and EU guidance recommend keeping food safety records for around two years, though the exact period can vary with the type of business and the shelf life of the food. A HACCP app stores records securely for the full retention period so nothing is lost, water-damaged or thrown away.
What are the 14 allergens I must declare?
Under EU Regulation 1169/2011 and UK law there are 14 allergens that must be declared: celery, cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, tree nuts, peanuts, sesame, soya, and sulphur dioxide/sulphites. Since Natasha's Law, food prepacked for direct sale must also carry a full ingredients list with these allergens emphasised.
What does an EHO ask for during a food safety inspection?
An Environmental Health Officer typically asks to see your HACCP-based food safety management system, temperature logs for fridges, freezers and cooking/cooling, cleaning schedules, delivery and supplier records, allergen information, and evidence of corrective actions when something went wrong. A HACCP app lets you produce all of this as a single PDF in seconds.
How much does HACCPapp cost?
HACCPapp offers a 14-day free trial, then costs £9.99 per month. There is no per-site or per-user surcharge for a single business, making it one of the most affordable HACCP apps available for cafés, restaurants, takeaways and pubs.
This HACCP guide was last updated on 18 June 2026 and is published at https://haccpapp.net/haccp-guide/. It is provided for general guidance on food safety in the UK and EU and does not constitute legal advice — always check the current requirements with your local authority or food safety regulator. See also our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.