Written by: Localyn · Published: September 2026 · Last reviewed: 22 October 2026

Corrective actions for food safety: what to record

A corrective action is what you do when a check fails, written so someone else can see the food was made safe and the same failure is less likely next week. In UK restaurants, cafes, pubs and takeaways it is the difference between a diary that says "all fine" and a system an environmental health officer can believe. The failure is not the problem. A failure with no decision is.

What you are writing down

HACCP-based procedures have to say what happens when a control is not met. That is part of the duty in assimilated Regulation (EC) No 852/2004, which the Food Standards Agency describes in its managing food safety guidance. Safer Food, Better Business puts the same idea in the diary: if something goes wrong, write what happened and what you did about it, then look back at those notes in the 4-weekly review. A corrective action is not a punishment and it is not a complaint about a member of staff. It is the record of a decision.

Four facts are enough. Anything longer tends not to be written at the pass.

The problem. What failed, with the number, the time and the place. "Fridge 11°C at 08:10, dessert display" is a problem. "Fridge playing up" is a conversation.
The immediate action. What you did to the food and the equipment before anyone was served. Moved, thrown away, reheated, isolated, taken off sale, engineer called.
The prevention. What will stop the repeat. A new seal, a different delivery limit, a task moved to a named day, a person retrained. "Be more careful" is not prevention.
Who and when. A name and a time, written when it happened. Add a recheck when the fix can be measured, such as the fridge back at 4°C after the repair.

The corrective action record uses those columns. The SFBB diary can hold the same note if the team will actually write it there. Two places that do not match is worse than one. Our guide to SFBB covers the diary and the 4-weekly review.

When you need one

You do not need a corrective action because a check passed. You need one when a safe method was not met, or when you cannot show that it was. Typical triggers in a catering kitchen:

Chilled food too warm. A fridge, display or delivery above the limit in your method. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland the legal maximum for cold food is generally 8°C. SFBB practice is to run colder, often 5°C or below. See the fridge log guide for the readings, and the delivery guide for the van.
Hot holding too cool. Food held for service below 63°C, unless you are inside a written exception and the clock has not run out.
Cooling or reheating missed. Rice or stew that did not get cold in the time your method allows, or food that was not steaming hot in the centre. The cooling guide is the standard to write against.
Cleaning missed where it mattered. A scheduled disinfection that did not happen, especially after raw food or on a surface that then touched ready-to-eat food. The cleaning schedule guide explains the rows worth chasing.
Deliveries, pests, allergens, probes, people. A rejected or wrongly accepted delivery, droppings, a dish sold with the wrong allergen information, a probe that failed its check, or someone working with vomiting or diarrhoea.

If you are unsure whether the food is safe, treat it as unsafe. A short note that says you threw it away is a better record than a long note that keeps it.

Immediate action is about the food

The first line protects the customer. The second line protects next week. Do not swap them. Calling the engineer while the cheesecake stays in an 11°C fridge is not an immediate action. Decide the food, then the equipment.

For a fridge that is above 8°C, ask how long the food has been warm. If you checked it in range two hours ago and you are still inside a limit your safe method allows, you may be able to move it to a working fridge and recheck. If it was like that at opening, or overnight, you usually cannot show the time. Do not guess a time that saves the stock. High-risk chilled food you cannot account for should be thrown away. Tape the unit so nobody restocks it. Move only food you can defend.

The food hygiene regulations in England allow some cold food on display above 8°C for a single period of up to four hours, and some hot food below 63°C for up to two hours, after which it is chilled or discarded. Those are planned exceptions with a clock, not a way to rescue an overnight failure you did not time. If you use them, your safe method should say for which food, who starts the clock, and what happens when it ends. Write the start time. A note that says "used the four-hour rule" with no start time is not the exception.

The same shape fits other failures. Warm delivery: reject, separate, tell the supplier, do not cool it in your fridge. Cooling too slow: serve only if your method still allows it, otherwise discard. Missed disinfection after raw meat: stop, clean, and discard ready-to-eat food that touched the surface. Wrong allergen on the board: stop the sale, correct the matrix, and consider who has already been served. Probe failed: stop using it, use a checked spare, do not invent the readings it would have given.

Prevention has to be able to fail

Prevention is a change you can see later. Replace the seal, move the filter clean to a named day, retrain the person who receives deliveries, rewrite the allergen card, book the pest contractor, take the dish off until the recipe is checked. "Spoke to the team" can sit beside one of those. It cannot be the only line, especially the second time the same thing happens.

If the same fridge, the same delivery or the same closing task appears again, the prevention line was wrong or it was not done. The 4-weekly review is where that pattern should be obvious. A review that is signed and blank, next to a month of problems in a group chat, has not reviewed anything. Close the action only when the recheck exists: the fridge at or below the limit you set, the food back in it only after that reading, the schedule on the wall replaced, the training written on the staff record.

What environmental health officers check

Officers expect problems. A pack in which nothing has ever gone wrong, in a kitchen that clearly runs hot and busy, reads as incomplete. They compare the note with the room.

Can you show a recent failure with a food decision, not only an engineer reference?
Does the story match the equipment? A seal you "replaced last month" should not still be split.
Are actions written on the day, by someone who was there? A week filled in before the visit is recognisable.
Do repeats change the method, or does every line say "will monitor"?
Are open actions still open? An engineer who has not been should not be written as closed.
Can a cook explain one recent action without fetching the owner?

Confidence in management is largely this habit. It is also why businesses sit on a hygiene rating of 3 while the daily ticks look full. The guide to moving a rating and the inspection checklist put that score in context. What happens in an enforcement visit more generally is on the Food Standards Agency's inspections page, linked below.

Where to keep it

Keep corrective actions with the diary, for as long as your procedure says, and long enough to explain a complaint from a few weeks ago. Paper is acceptable when it is legible, dated and findable. Digital is acceptable when the person on shift can write the failure at the time and you can show it during a visit. A chat message is not the record unless you have decided, in the safe method, that the chat is the record and you can still find it. Most kitchens cannot. Copy the decision into the diary the same day and stop using the chat as the official copy.

Do not run a second system that stays blank because the real notes are elsewhere. One place, reviewed every four weeks by someone who supervises the kitchen. If a tablet is unavailable, a paper line with the same four facts is fine. Do not backfill a digital time to look earlier.

Worked example

Monday 08:10, the dessert display reads 11°C. The cheesecakes and cream have been in it overnight. Nobody checked it after Sunday close. Staff do not use the four-hour display exception, because that needs a start time during service and they do not have one. They tape the unit "do not use", throw the high-risk chilled food away, and write "dessert fridge 11°C at opening, overnight stock discarded, unit taped, Priya". They do not move the cheesecake into the walk-in to "see if it cools". The engineer is booked for a split seal that was already noted three weeks ago as "will watch".

Prevention this time is different. The seal is ordered the same morning. The unit stays empty until a recheck with the door shut reads 4°C, written on Wednesday as "dessert fridge 4°C after seal, food returned, Priya". The 4-weekly review says the previous "will watch" was the wrong action and a warm display at opening means discard, not watch. The same week a Thursday filter clean is missed and a salad delivery arrives at 9°C. Both use the same four facts: missed task done before Friday service, and salad rejected, supplier told, not used. None of the three notes says "all fine". When an officer asks about the tape residue on the display, the diary, the recheck and the empty gap in Sunday's readings tell the same story.

Common mistakes

A diary with no problems in it, or problems that live only in a group chat.
Recording the engineer and not the food. Or recording the food and never fixing the cause.
"Told staff to be careful" as the only prevention, especially on a repeat.
Using the four-hour or two-hour exception with no start time.
Guessing how long a fridge was warm so the stock can be kept.
Closing an action before the recheck, or backfilling the week before an inspection.
Two forms for the same event that disagree.

Where this comes from

This guide follows the Food Standards Agency's managing food safety guidance, including procedures based on HACCP principles, and the diary and 4-weekly review in Safer Food, Better Business for caterers. Temperature limits used in the examples match the FSA's chilling guidance and the hot-holding duties in the food hygiene regulations for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. How inspections and enforcement work is set out in food safety inspections and enforcement. Scottish businesses should follow Food Standards Scotland and CookSafe where they use it. Your safe method should name the failures that are realistic for your menu, and the decisions staff are allowed to take without phoning the owner.

Frequently asked questions

What should a corrective action include?

Write the problem with a time and a fact, the immediate action you took to protect food, what you will change so it is less likely to happen again, and your name. Add a recheck when the fix can be measured, such as a fridge temperature after a repair.

Do I need a corrective action when a check passes?

No. A pass is the normal record: the reading, the tick or the initial. A corrective action is for a fail, a miss, or a situation where you cannot show the safe method was met. A diary with no failures at all is hard to believe in a busy kitchen.

What if I do not know how long food was too warm?

Do not invent a time that lets you keep it. If high-risk chilled food was above 8°C and you cannot show how long, throw it away, take the equipment out of use, and record that decision. The four-hour display exception needs a real start time. It does not cover an overnight failure.

Where should corrective actions be written?

In the SFBB diary or on a corrective action sheet the team actually use at the time. Keep one record, not a chat plus a blank form. Review open and repeated actions in the 4-weekly review, and close an action only when the recheck or the change has happened.

What is a weak prevention line?

"Be more careful" or "will monitor" with no change to equipment, method, training or the rota. If the same failure happens again, the prevention was not good enough. Name the change: a part replaced, a task moved to a named day, a person retrained, a dish taken off sale.

What is SFBB?Digital SFBB diary Opening and closing checklist EHO readiness quiz Restaurants Paper SFBB pack comparison

Sources

Last reviewed 22 October 2026. These links are the pages this guide was checked against. They are not an endorsement of Localyn, and they do not make a kitchen compliant.

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