The HACCP plan you need by Friday

If you've just been told the EHO is coming, or you've just realised your HACCP plan is a Google doc from 2019, this is for you. You can put together a real, defensible HACCP plan in under an hour. You don't need a consultant. You need to do the seven principles properly and have it written down somewhere they can read.

What an EHO actually wants to see

Two things, in this order:

1. A document that describes your specific business — your menu, your kitchen, your suppliers, your processes.
2. Evidence you're following it — daily temperature logs, cleaning sign-offs, allergen confirmations, training records.

Generic templates fail on both counts. They're not about you, and there's no evidence trail. The plan you printed off two years ago is almost certainly worse than no plan, because it commits you to standards you're not actually meeting.

The seven principles, in plain English

The HACCP framework has been the same since 1959. Don't be scared of it. It's:

1. Hazards — what could go wrong with the food you serve? (Spoiled chicken, cross-contamination, allergen mix-up, glass shards.)
2. Critical Control Points — where in your kitchen does that hazard get controlled? (The fridge, the chiller, the wash-station, the prep board.)
3. Critical Limits — what's the number? (Below 5°C. Above 75°C. No allergen contact within 30 minutes.)
4. Monitoring — how do you check the limit is being held? (Daily fridge temp, weekly probe check.)
5. Corrective Action — what do you do when it isn't? (Move stock to backup chiller. Bin compromised batch. Call the supplier.)
6. Verification — how do you know the system is working? (Weekly EHO mock-walk. Monthly fridge calibration check.)
7. Records — proof you did all of the above.

For a single café, this is a 4-page document. For a 50-cover restaurant with a fryer, it might be 8.

The bits people get wrong

Skipping hazards specific to their menu. If you serve oysters, list the marine biotoxin hazard. If you serve nut-based desserts, list the cross-contamination protocols. If you've got a sous-vide setup, list time-and-temperature for that specifically.

Listing limits they can't actually measure. "Below 5°C" is useless if nobody has a probe thermometer or the digital fridge readout isn't calibrated.

Writing a beautiful plan with no monitoring. A monitoring routine no one does is worse than no routine — it documents you knew the standard and chose not to meet it.

Forgetting the records. This is the bit that catches everyone. The plan says "daily temp check" — but where is the log? On a clipboard that fell behind the fridge in 2023? In a notebook that got binned in the post-Christmas clean? This is exactly the gap a digital system closes.

A 60-minute path through it

1. Print your menu. Walk through each dish — every step from delivery to plate. Anywhere a hazard could appear, note it.
2. Identify the CCP for each (fridge, freezer, cook, hold, serve).
3. Write the limit per CCP.
4. Decide the monitoring (who checks, when, how).
5. Write what happens when monitoring fails.
6. Set up a way to log everything that doesn't rely on paper.
7. Train two staff to do the daily monitoring. Sign it off.

That's the plan. It is not optional — it's statutory under the Food Safety and Hygiene Regulations 2013. It's also genuinely the way to run a kitchen that doesn't get someone sick.

Where Dilagee comes in

We generate your HACCP plan from your menu and your business type — restaurant, café, pub, hotel — and it includes the seven principles filled in for you. Then we wire the monitoring (daily temperature logs, allergen confirmations, cleaning sign-offs, deliveries) into a daily check the team does on their phone. The plan and the evidence trail live in the same place.

The plan that took your previous consultant a week and £1,500 takes Dilagee about three minutes. You can sit with it, edit anything that doesn't fit, and have your team running on it by Monday.

If you'd like to see what a full HACCP plan looks like for your specific business, start a free trial — first plan is free, no card.

Disclaimer: Dilagee is software, not a primary authority on food safety. Your local EHO has the final say on what compliance looks like for your specific premises. Use this as a starting point, then make it yours.