Food safety checks for cafés, done between customers
Most cafés we visit are run by one or two people doing everything, and the food safety folder is the job that slips when the queue reaches the door. Hubl turns the opening and closing checks, the fridge temperatures, the cleaning and the allergen matrix into a few taps on a phone, so the record exists whether or not anyone had a quiet moment to fill it in. And when the Saturday barista is asked what is in the carrot cake, Orbit, Hubl’s AI assistant, answers from your own records.
Used by bakery cafés, coffee shops and tea rooms including Huffkins
Small kitchen, same law
A café is inspected against the same food hygiene law as a hotel kitchen with a brigade of twelve. The officer knows you do not have a compliance manager. What they need to see is that the checks happen anyway, and that whoever is behind the counter can answer their questions.
1 The rating on the door
Your Food Hygiene Rating is on the FSA website and, increasingly, on the delivery apps. For a café living on passing trade and reviews, a 3 costs custom in a way it never did before. In Wales and Northern Ireland the sticker must be displayed at the entrance.
2 One person, three scores
Hygiene, structure and confidence in management. The last one is the score small cafés most often lose, because it is largely records and knowledge, and in a one-person kitchen the records are the first thing to go when it gets busy.
3 Cakes, sandwiches and milk
Cream, custard, egg mayonnaise, fresh milk for 200 flat whites: a café handles more high-risk food than its size suggests, in fridges that get opened every ninety seconds. Temperatures and dates are where it goes wrong.
What the EHO spends their time on in a café
These are the questions that come up in almost every café inspection we have prepared a client for, and the places paper records tend to let people down.
- ✓Allergens on a counter that changes weekly. Cakes from a local baker, oat milk (oats count as a cereal containing gluten unless the carton says gluten-free), soya milk, nut syrups and toppings, sesame on the buns. The officer asks the barista, not the owner, which of the cakes contain nuts, and expects an answer from a record rather than from memory.
- ✓Prepacked for direct sale. Sandwiches, salads and cakes you pack on the premises before a customer orders them need a full ingredients label with the allergens emphasised, under Natasha’s Law. Anything made to order does not need the label, but the allergen information still has to be available and right.
- ✓The milk fridge and the display chiller. The under-counter milk fridge is opened hundreds of times a day and the cake display sits under lights. Officers probe both. Chilled food can be out of temperature control for a single period of up to 4 hours for display, and they want to know you track that.
- ✓Who made the cake. Home bakers and local suppliers must be registered food businesses in their own right. Keep their details, their allergen information and your delivery records; “a friend makes them” is not an answer that ends well.
- ✓The sink situation. A separate hand-wash basin, stocked with soap and paper towels and not full of milk jugs. In small cafés the only sink is doing everything, and officers notice.
- ✓Training for part-time staff. Food handlers must be trained and supervised for the work they do; officers expect to see Level 2 food hygiene certificates or equivalent for anyone preparing food, including the Saturday staff.
How Hubl fits a café
Built for a business where the owner is also the chef, the barista and the person who does the paperwork, on whatever phone is in their apron pocket.
Opening and closing checks in two minutes
A tap-through list for the start and end of the day: fridges on, handwash stocked, dates checked, surfaces clean. Timestamped and recorded against whoever did it, so a missed morning shows up as missed rather than as a blank page. See the digital diary.
The milk fridge and the display chiller, logged
Each fridge and chiller gets its own check with the target built in. A reading over 5°C prompts for the corrective action there and then, so the fix is recorded with the problem instead of forgotten in the rush. See temperature logs.
An allergen matrix that keeps up with the counter
Tag allergens once per product, and every cake, sandwich and drink that uses it updates. Contains and may-contain kept separate, a filter for the customer who asks, and the ingredient record behind your labels. See allergen management.
Suppliers, deliveries and certificates in one place
Who supplies the cakes and the milk, what arrived at what temperature, and the training certificates for every member of staff, stored where the officer can be shown them in a minute. See document storage.
Orbit, for the question at the till
Hubl’s AI assistant answers from your own records: does the carrot cake contain walnuts, which fridge was out of range this week, what to do if the milk fridge reads 9°C. The answer is there for the Saturday barista without a phone call to the owner. Meet Orbit.
Priced for one site, ready for a second
A single café pays for a single café. When the second site opens, the same checks and the same allergen matrix go with you and the dashboard shows both. See pricing.
Free templates for café kitchens
Staying on paper for now? These are the three records officers ask a café for first. All free, all built by us.
“Our customers’ safety has always been our priority, and that’s where Hubl has truly made a difference. With Hubl’s temperature recording and monitoring features, our daily operations have become more efficient and reliable, giving us confidence that our products are consistently stored at the right temperatures.”
Charles Devlin, Operations Director, Huffkins bakery and café tea roomsCafé food safety questions, answered
Does a small café need a food safety management system?
Yes. Every registered food business, however small, must have a documented food safety management system based on HACCP principles and keep records that show it is followed. For a café the usual starting point is the FSA’s free Safer Food, Better Business pack for caterers, with its daily diary. It does not have to be that pack, and it does not have to be on paper: local authorities accept digital records, and our guide to the SFBB diary explains what changes when it moves to an app.
Do I have to label the sandwiches and cakes I make?
It depends on when they are packed. Food you pack on the premises before a customer orders it, a sandwich in a box in the chiller, a slice of cake wrapped on the counter, is prepacked for direct sale and has needed a full ingredients label with the 14 allergens emphasised since October 2021, the rule known as Natasha’s Law. Food made to order or served unwrapped does not need the label, but you must still be able to tell customers accurately which allergens it contains, in writing or verbally with a written sign telling them to ask. Either way the label or the answer is only as good as the allergen record behind it.
What temperature should a café fridge be?
5°C or below is best practice and the figure officers expect to see recorded; 8°C is the legal maximum for chilled food in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Check the milk fridge and the display chiller at least twice a day and write down the actual reading. Chilled food on display can be out of temperature control for a single period of up to four hours, after which it must go back in the fridge or be thrown away, so note the time things come out.
Do my staff need food hygiene certificates?
The law says food handlers must be supervised, instructed and trained in food hygiene in a way that matches the work they do. It does not name a certificate, but in practice officers expect to see Level 2 Food Hygiene, or equivalent training, for anyone preparing food, and evidence of a basic induction for everyone else. Keep the certificates where you can find them, and keep a record of who was trained when.
Does the food hygiene rating really matter for a café?
More than it used to. The rating is published on the FSA website and shown by the main delivery apps, and customers look. In Wales and Northern Ireland you must display the sticker at your entrance; in England it is voluntary, but a café that hides a 3 tends to be assumed to have a 2. The rating comes from three scores, hygiene, structure and confidence in management, and the last of those is mostly your records, which is the part a small café can fix fastest. Our guide to improving your food hygiene rating goes through the scoring.
What is Orbit, and how does it help a café?
Orbit is the AI assistant built into Hubl. It answers from your own product and allergen records, your temperature checks and your safe methods rather than from the open internet, so it knows which cakes contain walnuts, what to do when the milk fridge reads 9°C, and which checks were missed this week. For a café that means the person at the till answers a customer from the record rather than from memory, the corrective action comes with the reason behind it, and the owner is not phoned on their day off. Meet Orbit.
Set it up in an afternoon
Add your fridges and your counter, run tomorrow’s opening checks on your phone, and show the record to whoever asks next. Free for 14 days, no card needed.
Start a free 14-day trial