Guides
The things every hospitality operator actually has to deal with, written by someone who has done them. Organised around the three pillars of running a hospitality business: compliance, operations, and protection.
Compliance
The 14 UK allergens are celery, cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, peanuts, sesame, soybeans, sulphur dioxide and sulphites, and tree nuts. Every café and restaurant must be able to tell a customer, accurately, which of these are in any dish on the menu.
Read MoreUK law requires chilled food at 8°C or below (5°C is best practice), hot holding at 63°C or above, and a cooking core temperature of 75°C for two minutes or an equivalent time and temperature. You also need calibrated probes, written records, and corrective actions when something goes wrong.
Read MoreSafer Food, Better Business is the FSA's simplified food safety management system for small caterers and retailers. It bundles HACCP-based safe methods with a daily diary you are meant to actually fill in. Treat it as a working document, not a binder. Most operators get pulled up because they do not.
Read MoreOperations
A café opening checklist should take 30 to 45 minutes and cover fridge and freezer temperatures, hot water at the handwash, allergen checks on overnight deliveries, til float, and a sign-off on the previous night's close. Done properly, it becomes the daily evidence an EHO will ask for.
Read MoreA good café closing checklist covers stock, prep, fridge and oven shutdown, cleaning sign-offs, waste, lights, alarm and locks. Done properly it takes 45 to 75 minutes, and the test is simple: if tomorrow's opener walks in and swears, you got it wrong.
Read MoreA proper shift handover carries five things: prep status, equipment status, live customer complaints, deliveries due, and staffing changes. It must be both written and verbal, takes ten to fifteen minutes, and the outgoing shift owns it. The long handover across days off is where most failures happen.
Read MoreProtection
Working with contractors safely in hospitality comes down to three things every time: a current insurance certificate, a written risk assessment for the specific job, and a short site induction. Get those on file before anyone lifts a tool and most of the legal and insurance fallout goes away.
Read MoreA hospitality risk assessment is a written record that identifies hazards, who could be harmed, and what you have done to control the risk. UK businesses with five or more staff must put theirs in writing. Most cafés need around seven core assessments, reviewed annually and after any incident.
Read MoreA right to work check in UK hospitality means verifying every new hire's legal status before their first shift, using either a certified digital identity provider, a Home Office share code, or (rarely now) a manual document check. You must keep dated, signed records for the duration of employment plus two years.
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