Food safety records for pubs that survive a change of chef
Pub kitchens run on people who were not there last month: the new head chef, the student on the fryer for the summer, the manager covering the night the chef walked. Every one of them inherits a folder. Hubl gives each of them the same short checks on a phone, records who did what and when, and lets head office see every site without driving to it. And on the shift the chef is not on, Orbit, Hubl’s AI assistant, answers the team’s questions from your own records.
Used by pubs, bars and hospitality groups including Tayēr + Elementary
Where pubs lose marks
The kitchen is usually fine on the day. What drags a pub down to a 3 is what the officer cannot find: the records for the fortnight the chef was off, the allergen sheet that predates the new menu, the training certificates that left with the last team. Three patterns come up more than any others.
1 The folder belongs to a chef who has left
Pub kitchens turn over staff faster than any other part of hospitality. When the food safety system lives in one person’s head and one person’s handwriting, the day they leave the records stop, and the officer arrives six weeks later.
2 The specials board and the fryer
A menu that changes weekly, bar snacks with nuts on the counter, and gluten-free chips going into the same oil as the battered fish. Allergen information in pubs is where a blanket “may contain” gets written and where officers push back hardest.
3 One site pulling the group down
For a group, the rating on the FSA website is per pub, but the reputation is shared. Head office finds out about the 2 from a customer review, not from the kitchen, because the paper records never left the building.
What the EHO spends their time on in a pub
The questions that come up in almost every pub inspection we have prepared a client for, and the records they ask to see.
- ✓Sunday service and hot holding. A carvery or a roast held on the pass has to stay at 63°C or above. Food can drop below that for a single period of up to 2 hours, after which it is used or thrown away, and the officer wants to see the times written down, not remembered.
- ✓Cooling stock, gravy and big batches. Ten litres of gravy left to cool on the side overnight is the classic pub finding. Into the fridge within 90 minutes of cooking, portioned and in shallow trays, with the time recorded.
- ✓Allergens across the whole menu, including the bar. Officers ask the person on the section which dishes contain celery or mustard, check the specials board against the matrix, and look at cross-contact from shared fryers, boards and toasters. A blanket “all dishes may contain all allergens” is not accepted as allergen information.
- ✓The walk-in and the cellar fridges. Twice-daily readings with actual numbers, and evidence of what was done on the day one read 9°C. The cellar is often out of sight and out of the diary.
- ✓Ice, glasswashers and the bar side. Ice is food. Officers check the ice machine, the scoop, the glasswasher and the bar’s cleaning schedule, which is usually the one nobody has written.
- ✓Who has been trained, and when. Food handlers must be trained and supervised for the work they do. In a pub that means certificates or induction records for casual and seasonal staff, not just the head chef.
How Hubl fits a pub, and a group of them
The same checks in every kitchen, done on a phone by whoever is on, with the record living in the business rather than in the chef.
Checklists that outlast the chef
Opening, closing, Sunday service and bar-side checks built once and pushed to every site. A new starter opens the app and sees today’s checks, with the work instruction and the corrective action for each one. See the digital diary.
Hot holding, cooking and the walk-in
Cooking, reheating, hot-hold and fridge checks with the target built in and a prompt for the corrective action when a reading is out of range. The gravy that cooled overnight becomes a recorded failure with a recorded fix, which is what an officer wants to see. See temperature logs.
One allergen matrix, every menu, every site
Tag allergens once per product and every dish across the group updates, specials included. Contains and may-contain kept separate, with a history of who changed what. The answer at the table comes from the record, not from memory. See allergen management.
Head office sees every kitchen tonight
The reporting dashboard shows each pub’s checks, failures and corrective actions in real time, colour-coded, so the area manager finds the gap before the customer or the officer does. See the reporting dashboard.
Training records that stay when staff go
Certificates, inductions and the food safety management system stored against the site, with expiry tracking, so the record does not walk out with the person. See document storage.
Orbit, for the shift the chef is not on
Hubl’s AI assistant answers from your own records and safe methods: which dishes contain mustard, what to do when the hot hold reads 58°C, which site missed its closing checks this week. Meet Orbit.
Free templates for pub kitchens
Staying on paper for now? Start with the records officers ask a pub for first. All free, all built by us.
“We love using the Hubl app and Assist system. From the first contact all the way to install, the team has exceeded all expectations. The systems are intuitive, easy to use and save time. The Hubl team accommodated all requests and bespoke tailoring requirements to suit our needs and specifications for our venues.”
Alex Kratena, Co-Founder, Tayēr + ElementaryPub food safety questions, answered
Does a pub that only does bar snacks need a food safety management system?
If you are registered as a food business, yes, and almost every pub is. The system has to match what you actually do, so a wet-led pub reheating pies and putting out nuts needs far less than a gastropub, but it still needs a written system based on HACCP principles and records to show it is followed. The FSA’s free Safer Food, Better Business pack for caterers is the usual paper starting point; digital records are accepted by local authorities, and our guide to the SFBB diary explains what changes when it moves to an app.
What are the rules for a carvery or hot holding on the pass?
Hot food held for service must be kept at 63°C or above. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland it may drop below that for a single period of up to two hours, after which it has to be used, cooled and refrigerated within 90 minutes of cooking, or thrown away; it cannot go back up and round again. Probe it when it goes onto the pass and again during service, write the readings and the times down, and the officer has what they need. In Scotland the rules differ slightly, so check with your local authority.
Can we just put “may contain all allergens” on the menu?
No. You must be able to tell a customer accurately which of the 14 regulated allergens each dish contains, in writing or verbally with a written sign telling them to ask. A blanket warning across the menu does not meet that, and officers treat it as a sign the matrix is missing. Precautionary “may contain” statements are allowed where there is a genuine cross-contact risk you have assessed, such as chips cooked in the same fryer as battered fish, and that is exactly the kind of specific information customers with allergies need.
How do we keep food safety consistent across a group of pubs?
Standardise the checks, not the chefs. The same opening, closing and temperature checks in every kitchen, with the corrective action written into each one, so a new head chef inherits a system rather than a folder. Then make the results visible from head office: which sites completed their checks today, which readings failed and what was done. In Hubl the checklists are built once and pushed to every site, and the reporting dashboard shows the group in one view, so an area manager can see a problem the same day rather than at the next inspection.
Do casual and seasonal staff need food hygiene training?
Anyone handling food must be supervised, instructed and trained in food hygiene to a level that matches the work they do; the law does not name a certificate, but officers expect to see Level 2 Food Hygiene or equivalent for people preparing food and a recorded induction for everyone else, including the summer staff and the bar team handling ice and garnishes. Keep the records with the site, not with the person, so they are still there when the season ends.
What is Orbit, and what does it do in a pub?
Orbit is the AI assistant built into Hubl. It answers from your own records and safe methods rather than from the open internet, so it knows which dishes contain mustard, what the corrective action is when the hot hold reads 58°C, and which site missed its closing checks. For a pub that means the sous chef covering Sunday gets the same answer the head chef would give, with the reason behind it, and a pub group gets one answer across every kitchen instead of a different interpretation in each. Meet Orbit.
Start with the pub that worries you most
Set one kitchen up in Hubl, run its checks for a fortnight, and compare the records with the folder. Then roll it out. Free for 14 days, no card needed.
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