What is SFBB? Safer Food, Better Business explained

The legal duty, and where SFBB fits

Food business operators must have food safety management procedures based on HACCP principles, keep them up to date, and be able to show that they work. That duty comes from assimilated Regulation (EC) No 852/2004. HACCP means you identify the hazards that matter in your operation, put controls in place, and check those controls. It does not mean you must use a particular binder or a particular brand of software.

SFBB is the FSA's plain-English pack that helps smaller businesses meet that duty. There are versions for caterers, retailers, childminders and residential care homes. Restaurants, cafes, takeaways, pubs that serve food, school kitchens and care homes often use the caterers pack or a sector pack that matches the people they feed. If your menu, equipment or customers are unusual, you may need extra safe methods. A childminder pack will not describe a dark kitchen. A blank caterers pack will not describe a care home that feeds people who are vulnerable to infection.

In Scotland, many businesses use CookSafe, published by Food Standards Scotland, rather than SFBB. The legal idea is the same: procedures based on HACCP principles, used in practice, with records that match the kitchen. Do not tell a Scottish officer you are "SFBB exempt" because you downloaded an English diary and never opened it.

What is in the pack

The caterers pack is built around safe methods and a diary. The safe methods are the written controls. The diary is the evidence that you followed them, including the days something went wrong. Typical sections include:

• Cross-contamination — separating raw and ready-to-eat food, cloths, boards, sinks, and personal hygiene.
• Cleaning — what is cleaned, how, how often, and with which chemicals, plus a schedule you actually complete.
• Chilling — fridge and freezer temperatures, cooling hot food, and cold display. See fridge temperature logs and cooling food safely.
• Cooking — cooking and reheating until food is safe to eat, including probing where you have said you will.
• The diary — opening and closing checks, problems, and a 4-weekly review.

Allergens are not optional extras beside the pack. Food information law still applies, including Natasha's Law for food you prepack before the customer chooses it. The management system should point at your allergen matrix and labels. See allergen rules for small businesses.

Safe methods have to be about your kitchen

The value of SFBB is the detail that matches the operation. A safe method should name the equipment, the foods, the temperatures, the time limits and the person responsible. "We cook food properly" is not a method. "Chicken is probed in the thickest part and is not served below the temperature written here; rice is spread in trays and refrigerated within the time written here" is a method, if it is what staff do.

If the page says one thing and the pass does another, change the page or change the pass. An officer who watches you cool a stockpot on the floor will not prefer the sentence that says you use shallow trays. Review the pack when the menu changes, when you buy equipment, when you refit, after a complaint or incident, and after inspection feedback. Date the version staff are supposed to follow. Take old copies off the wall.

The diary and the 4-weekly review

The diary is a record of what happened, written at the time by the person who did the check. Opening checks cover the premises and equipment before you cook. Closing checks cover what you leave behind. Extra pages cover temperatures, suppliers, training, and customers who are ill, depending on the pack you use. Entries should exist for days you trade. A closed Monday can be marked closed. A trading Monday with a blank line is a missed check.

SFBB includes a 4-weekly review. That page is where a manager shows they looked. A useful review names gaps, repeated warm readings, training that is due, and what will change. A signature and a date with no comment is better than a blank page and weaker than a review that records a decision. Speak to the people who do the work. If they cannot explain the cooling method, the method is not implemented, whatever the folder says.

What environmental health officers check

Officers are not marking the print quality of the FSA logo. They assess whether you manage food safety. On an SFBB-based system they typically:

• Ask for the safe methods and see whether they match the menu and the equipment in the room.
• Read the diary back over recent weeks, including today, and compare a fridge reading with the display.
• Look for corrective actions. A pack with no problems ever recorded is hard to believe.
• Check the 4-weekly reviews have been done by someone who supervises the kitchen.
• Ask a member of staff to explain one method without reading it aloud for the first time.
• Watch preparation, cleaning and temperature control while they talk to you.

A complete pack does not cancel unsafe practice seen on the day. Unsafe practice with no pack is worse, because there is nothing to show the other 364 days. The inspection checklist walks through the wider visit. Confidence in management is also why businesses get stuck on a hygiene rating of 3; see how that score moves.

How to set it up if you are starting

1. Choose the FSA pack that matches the business, or CookSafe in Scotland if that is what you use. Register with your local authority if you have not already. Registration is a separate legal duty.
2. Walk the kitchen and list the hazards that are real for you: raw chicken, rice, allergens, a vacuum packer, a display of sandwiches, vulnerable residents.
3. Complete the safe methods in your own words. Cross out controls you do not use. Add methods the template does not mention if you need them.
4. Train the people who will complete the diary. Tell them what a failed check looks like and who to tell.
5. Start the diary on the next opening, not "after we are less busy".
6. Put the first 4-weekly review in the calendar before the first month has passed.

Worked example

A six-table cafe downloads the caterers pack and fills in the safe methods on a quiet Monday. They delete the section on raw meat preparation because they do not handle raw meat, and they add a short method for the sandwiches they wrap each morning, pointing at the allergen matrix and the PPDS labels. Opening checks include the contact-grill, the milk fridge and handwashing, because those are the controls they can fail. The closer records leftover quiche: cooled in a shallow tray, in the fridge by the time written in the method, or thrown away.

In week three the milk fridge reads 9°C at opening. Staff move the milk, write the reading, and recheck. The engineer replaces a seal on Thursday. The 4-weekly review says "milk fridge seal; two late opening checks on Sundays; Sunday starter retrained". When an officer visits in week seven, the cook can point at the sandwich method and the matrix without fetching the owner from the bank. That is SFBB working. A cafe that instead keeps the unread pack in a carrier bag, and fills 30 days of ticks on the morning of the inspection, has a pack and does not have a system.

Paper or digital

SFBB is a method, not a requirement to stay on paper. Paper is acceptable when it is completed at the time, legible, stored so you can find it, and reviewed. Digital records are acceptable when staff actually use them and an officer can be shown the same evidence: the check, the person, the time, the failure, and the action. A screen that nobody can log into during a visit is not a record on the day. Choose the format the team will complete when the pass is busy. The digital diary guide covers questions officers ask about leaving paper.

Where this comes from

This guide follows the Food Standards Agency Safer Food, Better Business packs and the requirement in assimilated Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 for food safety procedures based on HACCP principles. CookSafe is the Food Standards Scotland equivalent many Scottish businesses use. Your local authority can tell you what they expect to see at your type of premises. The pack does not replace allergen labelling law or the temperature rules for chilled and hot food.

Related pages

Digital SFBB diaryFood safety documentsOpening and closing checklistEHO readiness quizRestaurantsPaper 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.

• Safer food, better business (Food Standards Agency)
• Safer Food, Better Business for caterers (Food Standards Agency pack)
• Assimilated Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 on the hygiene of foodstuffs
• Managing food safety

Template, tool and hub

• Opening and closing checklist
• Food hygiene rating checker
• Restaurants