FSA SFBB Digital Records for Chefs | Chef’s Helper
The FSA's Safer Food, Better Business (SFBB) pack is the standard food safety management system for small UK food businesses. Chef’s Helper is designed to handle the parts of SFBB that repeat every day, while leaving space for the records that are better kept in your own files.
What Chef’s Helper records for each SFBB section
| SFBB section | How Chef’s Helper helps |
|---|---|
| Temperature checks | Temperature logs for fridges, freezers, cooking, hot holding, cooling and deliveries with corrective actions. |
| Opening and closing checks | Customisable safety checklists with named completions and timestamps. |
| Supplier deliveries | Delivery temperature logging and supplier rejection notes. |
| Traceability records | Recipe books with dated ingredients, supplier notes and allergen tracking. |
| Cleaning schedule | Safety checks can include cleaning confirmation as part of opening and closing rounds. |
| Waste disposal | Waste log with reason, quantity and value so trends are visible. |
| Staff training records | Team member list with roles; keep training records in your existing HR folder and reference them here. |
| Month-end review | Inventory counts, waste summaries and audit exports for any date range. |
Kitchens in Scotland and Northern Ireland
SFBB is the guidance for England and Wales. Food safety guidance is devolved, so other parts of the UK use their own packs:
- Scotland: CookSafe, from Food Standards Scotland.
- Northern Ireland: Safe Catering, from the Food Standards Agency in Northern Ireland.
All three are based on HACCP principles and ask for the same kind of daily records: temperatures, opening and closing checks, cleaning, deliveries and what you did when something went wrong. Chef’s Helper keeps those records in the same way wherever your kitchen is. It is not endorsed or certified by Food Standards Scotland or the FSA, and your written CookSafe or Safe Catering pack stays your own.
What it does not replace
Chef’s Helper is a digital record of your daily kitchen operations. It is not endorsed, approved, certified by the Food Standards Agency. It does not replace a physical SFBB pack if your local authority requires one, and it does not give legal advice. Always check with your environmental health officer about the exact format they expect.
How the audit pack works
When you need to show your records, the EHO Audit Pack exports a chosen date range of temperature readings and corrective actions, completed safety checks, rota shifts and allergen review sign-offs as a PDF or CSV archive. This is the quickest way to answer the question: "Can I see what happened on this date?" See a sample in the demo kitchen’s EHO audit pack, or read how to prepare for an EHO visit.