They ask to see records, not a certificate
There is no document that proves a unit is safe. What an officer can look at is your own evidence: the checks you ran, the temperatures you recorded, what you did when something went wrong, and who signed for it.
Officers also work to their own authority's priorities and to what is in front of them, so two visits to the same unit in the same year can look different. No list, including this one, is a checklist that guarantees anything.
Commonly asked for on the day
- Which authority you are registered with, plus the trading name and the legal name of the business
- The last few weeks of daily records: opening and closing checks, temperatures, deliveries, cleaning
- Where your temperature limits are written down, and whether the person doing the check can see them
- How the probe is cleaned and how you check it against a known reference
- Allergen information for the menu being sold, and how staff answer a question about it
- Where the water comes from, how the tank is filled and cleaned, where waste water and trade waste go, and whether there is a dedicated hand wash basin with hot water
- Who has been trained, in what, and when
- Gas safety, electrical testing, insurance, waste transfer notes and your registration, none of them expired
What a good set of records reads like
Not every box ticked. A run of identical perfect entries reads as a book filled in at the end of the month. Records with the occasional out of range reading, a note about what was done and a closing entry are far more convincing, because that is what a real kitchen looks like.
A missing day looks like a missing record unless the diary says the unit was closed. Marking closed days turns most apparent gaps into an answer and leaves the real exceptions visible, which is where you want the attention anyway.
Allergens: the dangerous answer is a confident guess
Two questions get asked. Can you tell a customer accurately what is in a dish, and is that written down rather than held in one person's head. And what do you do about cross contact in a space the size of a serving hatch.
If the ingredient information for a bought in sauce is not to hand, the honest answer is that you do not know yet and you will find out. Allergen matrix basics covers how the information is usually laid out.
Staff illness records are health information
What happens when somebody reports being unwell is a fair question. The records themselves are health information about a named person: keep them, keep them properly, and do not hand them round in a pack. An officer asking about your policy is asking about the policy.
Organisers want something narrower
An organiser usually wants registration, insurance and allergen information before the gate opens, not a month of temperature readings. One pack or one read only link covers it without emailing photographs of paperwork.
What makes a visit go badly
- Records that cannot be found, because they are on a phone that is not here or in a folder at home
- Records that have obviously been tidied, with entries overwritten or pages replaced
- An answer given with confidence that turns out to be a guess, after which everything else gets checked twice
Questions people ask
What does an environmental health officer ask to see at a food van?
Records, not a certificate. The usual list is which authority you are registered with, the last few weeks of daily checks and temperatures, where your temperature limits are written down, how the probe is cleaned and checked, allergen information for the menu on sale, water and waste arrangements, who has been trained, and documents such as gas safety, electrical testing, insurance and registration.
Do I need a certificate to trade at a market or an event?
No document proves a unit is safe, and no software issues one. What an officer or an organiser can look at is your own evidence: the checks you ran, the temperatures you recorded, what you did when something went wrong and who signed for it. Organisers usually want registration, insurance and allergen information before the gate opens.
What if I do not know whether a bought in sauce contains an allergen?
Say so. The honest answer is that you do not know yet and you will find out, then check the pack, the product specification or the supplier in writing. A confident guess is the answer that makes a visit go badly, because everything else then gets checked twice.
Should staff illness records go in the pack an organiser sees?
No. A record of somebody reporting they were unwell is health information about a named person. Keep it, keep it properly, and keep it out of packs and shared links. An officer asking about your illness policy is asking about the policy, not for the names.
What this looks like in CaterPad
The diary, temperatures, deliveries, cleaning and documents sit in one place per unit, with the person who signed and both timestamps on every entry. A signed record cannot be edited: corrections sit beside their originals. When somebody asks, you share a read only link or a PDF for a date range in a couple of taps. Fitness to work records are held apart and never appear in a link, an export or a pack.
Related: the records a mobile caterer keeps, and what an officer or an organiser sees.