A HACCP plan is the written record of how your food business identifies what could make people ill and controls it at every step, from delivery to service. If you run a restaurant, café, takeaway or food truck in the UK or EU, the law expects you to have HACCP-based procedures in place — and to prove they work. This guide walks you through the 7 principles of HACCP in plain English, with a HACCP plan example you can adapt, so you can write your first plan without paying a consultant.
1. What a HACCP plan is
HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points. It is a system for managing food safety by looking at your process, spotting where things can go wrong, and putting checks at the points that matter most. A HACCP plan is simply that thinking written down: the hazards you have identified, the critical control points (CCPs) where you control them, the limits you must hit, and how you monitor and record it all.
You are not writing a science essay. A good plan is short, specific to your kitchen, and usable by your staff on a busy Friday night. The aim is a document a new team member could pick up and follow, and that an environmental health officer (EHO) could read and see that you have food safety under control. For the wider context on how HACCP fits your food safety management system, see our complete HACCP guide.
2. Before you start: your prerequisites
HACCP does not work in a vacuum. It sits on top of good hygiene practices — the everyday basics you must already have in place. These are called prerequisite programmes, and they include:
- Cleaning and disinfection schedules
- Pest control
- Personal hygiene and staff training
- Supplier and delivery checks
- Waste management, plus structure and maintenance
- Allergen management — see our allergen matrix guide
Get these solid first. If your prerequisites are weak, your HACCP plan will try to control hazards that basic hygiene should have handled already, and it will become unmanageable. With the basics in place, you can focus your CCPs on the handful of steps where control is genuinely critical.
3. The 7 principles of HACCP, step by step
The 7 principles of HACCP come from the international Codex Alimentarius standard and are the backbone of how to write a HACCP plan. Work through them in order.
Principle 1 — Conduct a hazard analysis. Walk through your process step by step (delivery, storage, preparation, cooking, cooling, hot holding, service) and list what could harm a customer at each step. Hazards fall into four groups: biological (bacteria such as Salmonella), chemical (cleaning products), physical (glass, metal) and — treated seriously across the UK and EU — allergens. This hazard analysis is the foundation of everything that follows.
Principle 2 — Determine the critical control points. A CCP is a step where control is essential to prevent or remove a hazard, and where losing control would mean unsafe food with no later step to fix it. In catering, the typical CCPs are cooking, hot holding, chilling and reheating. Not every step is a CCP; deciding which are is the heart of the exercise.
Principle 3 — Establish critical limits. A critical limit is a measurable value that separates safe from unsafe at each CCP. These must be specific numbers your staff can check. Common CCP examples for UK caterers: cook to a core temperature of 75°C (or an equivalent such as 70°C for 2 minutes); hot hold at 63°C or above; chill to a legal maximum of 8°C in England (5°C is best practice); and store frozen food at -18°C.
Principle 4 — Establish monitoring. Decide how each critical limit is checked, how often, and by whom. For temperature CCPs this usually means a clean, calibrated probe thermometer and a written log. See our guide to temperature log requirements for exactly what to record.
Principle 5 — Establish corrective actions. Write down in advance what staff do when a limit is missed — for example, continue cooking until the core reaches 75°C, or discard food that has been below 63°C for too long. The action must both fix the immediate problem and stop unsafe food reaching a customer.
Principle 6 — Establish verification. Verification is checking that the system itself works: calibrating probes, reviewing and countersigning logs, and revisiting the plan when you change your menu, equipment or suppliers. Monitoring asks "is this batch safe?"; verification asks "is our whole system reliable?".
Principle 7 — Establish documentation and record keeping. Keep the plan and its records up to date. Your paperwork is the evidence that proves compliance to an EHO. Records include cooking and cooling logs, fridge and freezer temperatures, cleaning schedules and staff training.
| Principle | What it means | Curry example |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Hazard analysis | List biological, chemical, physical and allergen hazards at each step | Raw chicken may carry Salmonella and Campylobacter |
| 2. Determine CCPs | Find steps where control is essential | Cooking, hot holding, chilling, reheating |
| 3. Critical limits | Set measurable pass/fail values | Cook to 75°C core |
| 4. Monitoring | Decide how, when and who checks | Probe and log at each CCP |
| 5. Corrective actions | Plan what to do when a limit is breached | Keep cooking; discard unsafe food |
| 6. Verification | Check the whole system works | Weekly probe calibration; manager review |
| 7. Documentation | Keep the plan and records up to date | Signed cooking and cooling logs |
4. Worked example: cooked chicken curry
Here is a HACCP plan example following one dish through your kitchen. Cooked chicken curry is a good case because raw chicken is high risk and the dish is often cooked, hot held, cooled and reheated — hitting four classic CCPs.
| CCP | Hazard | Critical limit | Monitoring | Corrective action |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cooking | Survival of Salmonella / Campylobacter | Core temperature 75°C (or 70°C for 2 minutes) | Probe the thickest part of the largest piece at the end of cooking; record the reading | Continue cooking and re-probe; do not serve until the limit is met |
| Hot holding | Bacterial growth and toxin production | 63°C or above | Probe every 2 hours; record on the hot-holding log | Reheat once to 75°C, or discard if below 63°C for over 2 hours |
| Cooling / chilling | Growth of spore-forming bacteria (e.g. Clostridium perfringens) | Chill to 8°C or below (aim for 5°C); cool quickly, ideally within 90 minutes | Probe once cooled; record the fridge temperature | Discard food left too long in the danger zone (8°C–63°C) |
| Reheating | Survival of bacteria that grew during storage | Core temperature 75°C (82°C in Scotland) | Probe before serving; record the reading | Reheat again to the limit; reheat only once |
Notice that each row is a complete loop: a hazard, a measurable limit, a monitoring method, and a corrective action. That is what every CCP in your plan should look like.
A downloaded HACCP plan template is a starting point, not a finished plan. If it does not match your actual menu, equipment and process, it is worthless to you and unconvincing to an inspector. Walk your own kitchen and adapt every step to what you really do.
5. HACCP for small food businesses
Under EU Regulation 852/2004, Article 5, every food business operator (except primary producers) must put in place and maintain permanent procedures based on the HACCP principles. The same duty applies across the UK. But the rules are deliberately flexible for smaller businesses, so a small café or takeaway does not need a consultant-grade manual.
In the UK, the Food Standards Agency's Safer Food, Better Business (SFBB) pack is recognised as a HACCP-based system for small caterers. If you complete it and keep it up, you meet the legal requirement without writing a formal plan from scratch. The daily diary is where you record your monitoring — and you can replace that paper diary with a digital one; see our guide to a digital SFBB diary alternative. Similar simplified systems exist across EU member states.
If you are a small UK caterer, a completed and maintained SFBB pack satisfies your HACCP-based procedures obligation. You do not also need a separate formal HACCP document.
6. Building your HACCP plan template
To turn the 7 principles into a working template, create a table with one row per process step and these columns: step, hazard, is it a CCP?, critical limit, monitoring (how/when/who), corrective action, and record. Fill it in for your own menu, grouping similar dishes (for example, all cook-serve items) so you are not writing a plan for every single recipe.
Then keep it alive. Review the plan whenever your menu, suppliers, staff or equipment change, and at least once a year. The hardest part for most small businesses is not writing the plan — it is keeping the daily monitoring records consistently. That is where a digital tool earns its keep: reminders, time-stamped temperature logs, and records you can hand to an EHO in seconds instead of hunting through folders.
A HACCP plan is just clear thinking written down: find the hazards, control them at the critical points, set measurable limits, monitor, and record. HACCP App builds the whole system on your phone — digital diary, temperature logs and corrective-action records — so you stay compliant without the paperwork. Start a 3-day free trial (£9.99/month after) on our pricing page, or get it on Google Play.
7. Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to write a HACCP plan?
For a small café or takeaway with a settled menu, a working plan usually takes a day or two of focused effort once your prerequisites are in place. Using SFBB or a template speeds it up. The bigger commitment is ongoing: the daily monitoring records that keep the plan meaningful.
Do I legally need a HACCP plan for a food truck or small takeaway?
Yes. Under Regulation 852/2004 (and UK law), every food business except primary producers must have HACCP-based procedures. For small UK caterers, a completed Safer Food, Better Business pack meets this requirement — you do not need a separate formal document.
What are the most common critical control points in catering?
The classic CCP examples in a catering kitchen are cooking (75°C core, or 70°C for 2 minutes), hot holding (63°C or above), chilling and cooling (8°C or below in England, 5°C best practice), and reheating (75°C core; 82°C in Scotland). Chilled and frozen storage temperatures are also commonly controlled.
What is the difference between a hazard and a CCP?
A hazard is anything that could make food unsafe — bacteria, chemicals, physical objects or allergens. A CCP is a step where you must control one or more hazards, and where there is no later step to catch a failure. You identify hazards first (Principle 1), then decide which steps are CCPs (Principle 2).
Do I need a consultant to write my HACCP plan?
Not usually. Most small food businesses can write their own plan using SFBB or a HACCP plan template and the 7 principles. A consultant can help with complex processes, but for a typical restaurant, café or takeaway the plan is well within your reach — especially with a digital tool guiding the records.